Hello all, prepare to be amazed! Here are 43 creative, fun & informative ways to visualize KPI data.
About a month ago, I asked you to visualize KPI data. We received 65 entries for this contest. After carefully reviewing the entries, our panel of judges have discarded 22 of them due to poor charting choices, errors or just plain data dumps. We are left with 43 amazing entries, each creatively analyzed the data and presented results in a powerful way.
How to read this post?
This is a fairly large post. If you are reading this in email or news-reader, it may not look properly. Click here to read it on chandoo.org.
- Each entry is shown in a box with the contestant’s name on top. Entries are shown in alphabetical order of contestant’s name.
- You can see a snapshot of the entry and more thumbnails below.
- The thumb-nails are click-able, so that you can enlarge and see the details.
- You can download the contest entry workbook, see & play with the files.
- You can read my comments at the bottom.
- At the bottom of this post, you can find a list of key charting & dashboard design techniques. Go thru them to learn how to create similar reports at work.
Thank you
Thank you very much for all the participants in this contest. I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring your work & learned a lot from them. I am sure you had fun creating these too.
So go ahead and enjoy the entries.
PS: I am sorry if your entry is not shown on this page. We had to disqualify 22 entries due to various reasons.
KPI Dashboard by Alberto Almoguera
- Interactive with selection mechanism
- Interesting representation
- Lower charts can be replaced with sparklines / in-cell to declutter
KPI Chart by Amit Sinha
- Comparison and variance analysis
- Could use some insights – plain text instead of second chart?
KPI Chart by Ben Spalding
- Thermo-meter chart
- Feels over formatted, could have used simple colors.
KPI Chart by Chad Markel
- Interactive
- In-cell charts
- simple colors and easy to read
- May be sorting?!?
KPI Dashboard by Chetan Bhavsar
- Interactive
- Sortable
- The charts are well designed & labeled.
- Could have removed the table and kept charts (or reduced the content in table) as it is duplication.
KPI Dashboard by Francesco Petrella
- Interactive with slicers
- In-cell charts
- colorful & elegant
Become Awesome in Excel & VBA – Create dashboards like these…
- Learn how to create interactive dashboards & reports using Excel
- Develop your own macros & VBA code
- 50+ hours of video training
- Learn at your own pace
- Click here to know more
KPI Dashboard by George Gourgoulias
- Interactive with VBA / form controls
- Elegant and beautiful
- Ability to publish the report as PDF
KPI Chart by Indranil Sarkar
- Interactive
- Scrollable list to select KPIs
- Could use alignment and simpler formatting
KPI Chart by Janet
- Interactive with slicers
- Bullet charts
- Could use labels / explanation
- Also, horizontal is better
KPI Dashboard by Jiakun Zheng
- Interactive with slicers
- power pivot (XL 2010+)
- Alignment problems, poor labeling
KPI Chart by Jonathan Decker
- Interactive
- Simple colors
- The current month bar feels repetitive. Could have used a line?
KPI Dashboard by Joon Tan
- Simple charts with elegant presentation
- Ability to add commentary
KPI Chart by Karthik Ranggarajan
- Sparklines
- Elegant table design to present the information in simple way
- Good colors and layout
KPI Chart by Kaushik Joshi
- Waterfall chart
- Interactive
- Interesting representation, reduce the colors
KPI Dashboard by Keriman Hande
- Summary of key KPIs on top and drill down at bottom
- Ability to view variance or amounts
KPI Dashboard by Krishna Teja
- Interactive with VBA / form controls
- Ability to sort, drill-down to selected KPI
- Feels a bit cluttered, reduce the columns
- Could use alignment and simpler colors
KPI Chart by M.Hussain Kawosh
- Interactive
- Grouped KPIs to multiple charts
- Could use explanation, not sure how to read the charts / grouping
KPI Chart by Marie-Anne Andre
- Interactive with slicers
- Interesting design and presentation
- Reduce the control panel size and give more insights.
KPI Chart by Narayan Digambar
- Interactive
- Interesting take on the analysis – trend vs. variance
- Picture links
- Could use alignment and simpler colors
KPI Chart by Rabi Mahapatra
- Technically a data dump, but I give credit for the creative hexagonal KPI analysis.
KPI Chart by Ramananda V
- Interactive
- Compares handful of KPIs amongst each other
- Could use less formatting
KPI Dashboard by Reynaldo Peña
- Interactive with slicers
- Clear and elegant design
- Various comparisons and insights
Become Awesome in Excel & VBA – Create dashboards like these…
- Learn how to create interactive dashboards & reports using Excel
- Develop your own macros & VBA code
- 50+ hours of video training
- Learn at your own pace
- Click here to know more
KPI Chart by Ronaldo Balas
- Interactive
- Interesting design, but feels over formatted. Reduce special effects, the caps on columns feel like stacked columns and confuse.
KPI Chart by Utkarsh Shah
- Interactive
- Error in the option button selection (25 visible KPIs vs 23 buttons)
KPI Chart by Wil Davis
- Scatter plot with KPI performance
- Interesting representation
- Ability to drill down select KPI
Become Awesome in Excel & VBA – Create dashboards like these…
- Learn how to create interactive dashboards & reports using Excel
- Develop your own macros & VBA code
- 50+ hours of video training
- Learn at your own pace
- Click here to know more
Techniques used in these dashboards & charts
If you want to create these kind of charts & reports at work, I suggest reading up the Excel Dashboards & Excel Dynamic Charts pages. Also check out below links to know more about specific techniques.
- Form Controls
- Data validation
- Pivot tables
- Slicers
- Clickable Cells (VBA)
- VBA
- Formulas
- Sortable Tables
- Data bars (CF)
- Conditional Formatting
- Scrollable Tables
- Picture links
- Sparklines
How do you like these charts & dashboards? Which are your top 5?
Quite a few of these entries are really impressive. You can learn a lot by deciphering the techniques in these workbooks. Many thanks to everyone who participated. I will publish the winner names in next few days. Meanwhile, share your comments and tell me what you think. Share your top 5 entries too. 🙂
13 Responses to “Gantt Box Chart Tutorial & Template – Download and Try today”
Hi Chandoo
As one of your students I have followed your detailed example through with great success. However, Excel is acting in an unexpected way and I wonder if you could take a look?
http://cid-95d070c79aef808e.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Gantt%20Box%20Chart.xlsm
On my version, I have to type 40239 (Which equates to 2 Mar 2010) to get the chart to display 31 May 2010 (which should be 40329)!!??
Have I done something wrong or is Excel acting up?
Thx
Oli
PS Your example file in 2007 displays correctly.
Hi,
I like this idea a lot, but I agree the name is a little drab.
As an American I may just be seeing things, but to me the combination of lines and bars on your chart looks like a bunch of cricket bats.
Maybe you could work that into a catchier name. 🙂
Cheers!
Here is some code I use to keep the axis synched.
It may be useful to some of your readers
It is based on a comment I saw on Daily Dose of Excel.
Function SynchGanttAxis(Cname, lower, upper)
'Sets the X min and X max for Category axis
Application.Volatile
On Error Resume Next
'
'Top Horizontal Axis
With ActiveSheet.Shapes(Cname).Chart.Axes(xlCategory, 1)
.MinimumScale = lower
.MaximumScale = upper
End With
'Bottom Horizontal Axis
With ActiveSheet.Shapes(Cname).Chart.Axes(xlValue, 2)
.MinimumScale = lower
.MaximumScale = upper
End With
End Function
Function SynchVerticalAxis(Cname, lower, upper)
Application.Volatile
On Error Resume Next
' Excel 2007 only
'Right hand vertical axis
With ActiveSheet.Shapes(Cname).Chart.Axes(xlValue, 1)
.MinimumScale = 0
.MaximumScale = upper
End With
End Function
@Oli.. Can you check your file again.. I see 40329...
@Dave: Even I saw things.. the bars actually looked like lollipops. How about calling this lollipop chart - now that would be yummy and goes along the tradition of naming charts after eatables (bar, pie, donut...)
@Bob: Superb stuff... thanks for sharing 🙂
Hi Chandoo
This looks really good and I think it can also be applied to show project phases / milestones.
Question: Thinking further could this be amended to display a project lifecycle (Idea through to Implementation say 7 phases) on one bar / row? Just imagine 20 projects within a programme all on one chart one bar each showing their respective lifecycle stages i.e. on one page.
Idea: As the Gantt Box Chart this is quite intensive to set up re formatting etc how about the added extra of once you have completed this to "Save as template" i.e. saves the formatting and layout of the chart as a template so you can apply to future charts. Simple to do and will save the time formatting etc again and again and again.
Therefore tip: Click on your chart demo and then click on Save As template icon (2007) - edit file name and click on save. Ready to use / apply via Templates in Change Chart Type window.
Thanks and be very interested if the lifecycle question can be resolved
Mike
How embarrassing.
I was obviously suffering from numerical dyslexia. I was one of those days.
@Mike H: You can easily make this chart to work like a generic project lifecycle plan chart. All you have to do is,
1. in a separate sheet define the steps of lifecycle and various dates in a table (with 5 columns for each of the projects you have).
2. now use a control cell to input the project name you want to show in the chart
3. based on the input, use OFFSET Formulas to get the correct data
4. Rest is same as the tutorial above
For more info on the dynamic charting visit http://chandoo.org/wp/tag/dynamic-charts/ and http://chandoo.org/wp?s=OFFSET
Your solution is really smart but in the en Excel isn't meant to do stuff like this. I, as a former PM, always thought is was frustrating that you had to do stuff like this for something simple like a Gantt chart. So I built Tom's Planner. And would like to plug it here. I think it really solves the problem you are trying to solve in the most efficient way. Check out http://www.tomsplanner.com for a free account or play around with the demo.
Hi there,
Chandoo - this is really a very nice and helpfull chart - I adopted it, so I can report a forecast or the delay of a certain task (coming from my role as an auditor for projects).
One topic I´m currently struggeling with: I do have a project lasting for lets say 12 month. For a management reporting, I want to have kind of snapshot, lets say one month back and 2 month in the future. I tried with the offset formula, but failed. Any idea?
Thx
Lopi
[...] Ein viel geliebter Klassiker ist die Erstellung von GANTT-Diagrammen mit Excel. Wir hatten das Thema wiederholt schon hier. Chandoo.org hat sich mal wieder mit einer neuen Variante hervorgetan: Das GANTT-Box-Chart. [...]
[...] [...]
Hi Chandoo - fantastic xls. One thing I can't figure out how to do is adjust the alignment of the vertical axis. I would like to left align so that I could indent to represent sub tasks. Can that be done? Or is there a better way?
I've been trying to work out if there's a way to show weekends on the graph. The closest thing I've got is to add them on a secondary axis, but then I haven't been able to keep both axis lined up together! Any ideas?
Following on from this - is it possible to show things like holidays?