Gauges are a familiar metaphor, everyone can understand them, you can see them everywhere – near your stove, ac, car, gaming console, pc – you name it. So, when you are preparing a chart to tell a point, gauge chart like the one above can be effective. (I know charting pros like Jon Peltier wouldn’t agree with this and prefer speedometer charts only in cartoons.)
Unfortunately Excel doesn’t have a gauge chart as a default chart type. They of course have a 3d line chart, but let us save it for your last day at work. Meanwhile we can cook a little gauge chart in excel using a donut and pie (not the eating kind) in 4 steps.
Click here to download the excel speedometer chart template and play around.
1. Have your data ready
For a typical gauge or speedometer chart we need to have these 5 different values
- What the is gauge size?
- What is the range of Red zone?
- What is the range of Yellow / Amber zone?
- What is the range of Green zone?
- What is the value to be shown on Gauge?
In our case we can use typical values like you see on the right.
2. Make a doughnut chart using Red, Yellow and Green Values & Pie Chart
This is a simple step, just select the data for speedometer and click on insert chart and select “Doughnut” as chart type. Make sure you have added a data row in the end with value as 100 to get a gauge with 180° or 50 to get a gauge with 270°
Making the pie chart
This is another simple step, easier than eating pie. Just create a pie chart with 3 values,
- Gauge value
- 1
- 200 minus gauge value + 1
3. Blank out the bottom half of doughnut and pie charts
Just select the blank portions of doughnut and pie charts and set their border & background colors to none.
While you are at it, adjust the colors of donut portions to red, amber and green (or your favorite speedometer colors)
4. Finally, put the pie chart on top of donut chart
Just drag and drop the pie chart on the donut chart. Tweak the colors if needed, adjust the “send to background” / “bring to foreground” settings.
That is all, you will now have a neat looking gauge / speedometer chart to show off. Don’t forget to download the Microsoft excel gauge chart template
Also try: Thermometer chart, Partition chart, Chart around the clock, Min-max charts
108 Responses to “Hack together a Gauge Chart in Excel without sweat”
Chandoo, do you really want to encourage such poor presentation techniques?
I once had a tutorial that showed how to create a dial type chart, complete with colored regions, one or more needle indicators, and a numerical scale around its periphery. But the page received inordinate attention, and I realized the technique was prone to misuse and abuse, so I took it down.
I did recently post an example of a dial gauge, but only in jest:
Dial Gauge
y are you being fucken negative?the guy is trying to help...fucken shit face
@Jon, completely agree with you, dial charts are prone for misuse. I wanted to see how readers would take this.
Despite being a poor presentation alternative, dials have been a well known metaphor in real life and people can relate to them when used in moderation. I am hoping readers realize that this is one of the million ways to sell their story and use it only when needed.
"I am hoping readers realize..."
You have to (a) tell them once, (b) tell them twice, ...
Then you have to suppress the urge to make such a protocol available.*
*For me this is the hard part. I posted my own dial gauge to show that it could be done (and to show how clever I was to do so). I've actually taken down a few pages that present ineffective visualization techniques, and there are a few articles I've written for other outlets besides my own that I wish I could take back.
[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]
I agree with Jon. You're providing a tutorial and an Excel file, do you really people expect to critically reflect for the fraction of a second that it takes to download that file? Gauges and Excel are a bad combination, because they make people use gauges for things they're really not good at. There are undoubtedly good uses for them, but I have yet to see a gauge in a business graphic that makes sense.
I assume Chandoo just wanted to show a technique for special charts in Excel.
But I agree with Jon and Robert. A lot of readers of Pointy Haired Dilbert are probably looking for ideas and techniques in Excel that are useful for their daily work. That is why showing how to create a gauge chart in Excel was probably not the best choice.
On the other hand: maybe Chandoo just wanted to start a discussion…
Anyway: For everybody who is not that familiar with the discussion about gauges on business dashboards and better alternatives to display single values, please find a couple of links that might be interesting for you:
Don't use gauges:
http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/dmreview/dashboard_design.pdf
http://www.exceluser.com/dash/gauges_no.htm
Use bullet graphs instead:
http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/misc/Bullet_Graph_Design_Spec.pdf
And here is a very good tutorial how to create bullet graphs in Excel:
http://www.exceluser.com/explore/bullet.htm
@all : I kind of anticipated a heated debate when I hit the publish button on this one. And sure it followed.
I had this in my mind when I wrote this post:
- Gauges are something that everyone can relate to
- They can make a good chart / single slide to tell one single point of a big story
- They may not be suitable for corporate / board room. But they are acceptable in other settings like schools, informal situations where you use excel to communicate ideas.. which is a thousand different places.
I am very confident that people dont misuse gauges for the very reason that they dont misuse 3d bar charts / 3d lines or several other outrageous excel charting options that are out there but you seldom see in a boardroom.
That said, I should have added a section in the post suggesting possible uses for this chart. I will keep this in mind going forward though 🙂
This blog Is very informative , I am really pleased to post my comment on this blog . It helped me with ocean of knowledge so I really belive you will do much better in the future . Good job web master .
[...] do it. I have blogged few techniques involving pie chart visualizations like in-cell pie charts, speedometer charts, donut clocks and the response from readers has been [...]
With all due respect to Jon, there is absolutley nothing wrong with using this technique in an Excel dashboard. It is not a poor presentation technique when used properly. I am often asked to create such charts for corporate dashboards. If the argument is that you should not provide the info to inexperienced users because they may misuse it, then I would ask how often are pivot tables misused? Should pivot tables be removed as a standard feature of Excel? No, you cannot control how people use this information, you can only strive to provide the most accurate and detailed info as possible.
Actually, you do not need to create a separate pie chart. You can simply add the second table (Gauge Value,1, 200-(Gauge Value+1)) as a new series on the doughnut chart, and change the chart type to pie chart. 🙂
@Somnath: I agree with you. When I wrote this article I barely knew combination charts. I learned them later on though.
A sample xls on the combination chart would b e really helpful. I tired creating one but was not getting the expected output.
@Ram... have you checked our combination charts tutorial ? http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/01/05/excel-combination-charts/
This thing is a life saver! Thank You so much for this excel file. I work for a Major Apparel company and we are developing a dash board. The guages are a good measurement because it shows when an area is moving into the red zone and needs attention.
This will be very helpful.
Thanks again.
@Alan...You are welcome. You may also want to consider using a bullet chart or some of the budget vs. actual charts to show the same information. I am saying this because guages are prone to misuse often.
http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/07/21/dashboard-bullet-graphs-excel/
http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/04/05/budget-vs-actual-charts/
[...] makes the link list again, this time with Hack together a Gauge Chart in Excel without sweat. I once had a Speedometer Chart tutorial on my site, which I pulled down for the reasons outlined [...]
There is a better way to do this with one chart instead of two. Make the two data series described above and put them in the same Donut chart. After formatting the donut part, click on the second data series on the graph (should be the outer ring), Right Click and choose "Chart Type" then choose Pie. This makes one overlay on the other perfectly. It also eliminated the hassle of seeing which chart is on top of the other and/or aligning the two.
I agree that these kind of gauges can be easily misunderstood, as they provide purely a snapshot of a single instant in time. However, they do give a very clear visual impact of that time period. What I have done in the past is to use this type of gauge in conjunction with a time period line chart to show the current status and the trend. Just make sure you clearly state that the gauge is for a single time period!
John - how do you get the GV data label to be the GV value not the GV+ value?
Mike: you just need to set the name of the name data series to be the GV value (at least that's how I did it).
[...] original gauge chart template behind Egil’s industrious effort caused enough debate among our [...]
I found this really useful, having spent a few hours looking for something comparable this is certainly, by far and without hesitation the best excel template I've found. It's much easier to use than alternatives and more intuitive.
Are speedometer guages bad presentation? All the points above have merit, but I'm relfecting and thinking that a simple pie chart has the same limitations (i.e. it's a single snapshot in time, usually a month or a year) and I can't see the difference.
What's much more apparent reading the discussion is the point that bosses too readily jump to the wrong conclusions based on the data that's being presented. I'd respectfully point out that that is not the data, or it's presentation's fault.
Excellent work chandoo, your site is bookmarked!
Memamu -
Correct, gauges are not effective means to represent information. To display one value, they take up a lot of room. They show a single point in time, without any context or history. The use of an angle to show data is not as effective as the length of a bar or position of a point along an axis. About all you can say for certain in Chandoo's dial gauge is that the color intersected by the needle is yellow, so it's hardly better than a categorical measure.
Pies are also not particularly effective. They represent a single point in time. Using areas is as ineffective as angles for portraying values, and colors must be included, so nobody viewing the chart better be colorblind. If you really want to make it ineffective, make it a 3D pie chart.
You can replace the gauge with a line chart, which enables you to show today's point at the end of a series of points. Replace a pie chart with a bar chart.
The sad thing is that people (like Dilbert's pointy-haired boss) see a pie or gauge in all their colorful glory, they think, wow, that looks good. People see pie charts everywhere and don't realize they can't read them effectively. An effective data display is often boring, and it should be, to avoid distractions.
Hi Chandoo, I read your blog frequently - thanks for creating such an excellent source of information.
I have been working with gauges a lot. In know that to using them, there is a lot of resistance amongst charting gurus, and I guess I have to appreciate what Jon Peltier has to say about them. However, my clients really DIG them, so I will probably continue producing them.
Anyways, I find that it is much more robust way to create these gauges in one chart - starting out with a donut chart with two series, then changing your needle to a pie chart and you're basically done. I have a small blog I only recently started, where I am giving a short explaination for whoever wants to see in a bit more detail. Hope you don't mind me sharing the address.
http://www.blackbrick.nl/excel-blog.html
Keep up this excellent blog!
Cheers, Maurik
@Maurik: Welcome to commenting. Thanks for sharing your article with us. Good stuff. when I wrote this post in 2008, I didnt know how to make a combination chart. Since then I have learned the tricks to make one.
Please share your articles and ideas with all of us more thru comments. Welcome once again 🙂
thanks for this chandoo...
Thanks Chandoo for some very helpful tips. I'm the quality assurance person at a small but growing company and management would like to see some kind of dashboard posted with KPIs. By the way, my managers understand that these are just indicator gauges and there's a lot more going on under the hood. (Our president is a Six Sigma Black Belt)
Charles -
If your managers really do understand that gauges just indicate one point, and they know more is going on under the hood (and you have Six Sigma people in the organization), they should appreciate your use of better indicators for their KPIs.
Real charts, without fancy colors, for example. Line charts showing continual data of KPI performance against time.
@Chandoo...Jon's probably going to tell me off for encouraging you 🙂 but rather than use your method of putting a pie chart on top of a donut chart, you can instead add a second series to your donut chart, make the formatting changes you suggest above to make this look like a needle/pointer, then convert the second series to a pie chart.
I've posted an amended version of your download at http://cid-f380a394764ef31f.office.live.com/view.aspx/.Public/gauge-chart-template%20with%20changes%20by%20Jeff.xls
You'll probably have do download this to get it to work properly, rather than edit it in the in-browser mode
You can either control the color band spacings as you do in your spreadsheet download, or (if you're using these dials to summarise a range of measures and so aren't linking them directly to any one output) convert the various graph series formulas to arrays by selecting the series in the formula bar one by one and hitting F9.
To change needle position, right click the chart, select "Format Data Series" option, and play around with the "Rotation" setting until the needle is where you want it.Then, to change the spacings of the colours, left click on the chart, keep hitting the down arrow until you see the series you want in the formula bar e.g.
=SERIES("Background colours",{"Start","Red","Yellow","End","Blank"},{0,33,33,33,100},1)
…then change the three middle numbers in the part of the formula that goes {0,33,33,33,100} to something different
(but make sure the middle three numbers still add to 100 in this case, to make sure you maintain a semi-circle).
Despite the fact that we "shouldn't really" use dials, I think that if a paying client or monster boss wants them and it's a deal-breaker, then we best know how to whip one up.
Jeff, Jeff, Jeff....
It's been a long time since someone's mentioned my name three times in awe. Or is that aw....
Cool Stuff!!!!
you awesome dude. because of you i got a job!! Thanks a lot
When I drag and drop the pie chart on top of the donut - no matter what combination of "send to background" / "bring to foreground" I use, I can't see both at the same time. Any ideas what I have done wrong?
@Jennifer
You need to make both the Chart Area and Plot Area of the front Chart as Transparent or No Color
Hui,
Thank you so much. I can stop scratching my head now!
Hey Chandoo... you are a genius !!!
Thanks Chandoo and Jeff (for modified version),
- I got chance to update this with Excel 2007 look & feel.
- Also I have placed the value label between the chart (like normal gauge) using Camera Tool
Link to view / download:
https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B-QZQs3hmWJJaGVHWWtrb0xXdHNHMmQ1SjQ3Tk9xVTR4aDFnPQ&revision=true
Cheers@
Wow, this is so creative! What I learnt is not only the Garge chart, but also the out-of-box thinking. I never thought about to combine and manuiplate charts in this way.
Many thanks, Chandoo!
[...] got the idea, the framework, and template for the gauge from Chandoo.org, the second best Excel resource behind the ExcelIsFun YouTube channel. We suggest you check out [...]
Big thanks!
Didnt realize it could ever be this simple
Business Data Analyst at DHL Supply Chain,
Middle East, Energy, Oil & Gas, Saudi Aramco Project
Hey Chandoo..
you are amazing...
i am trying to do the Speed O meter graph... not able to do so..
please help me in providing me the simple steps in excel.. this will helps me big..
edit:
Thank you for you posts Chandoo. Gauge/Speedometer chart is exactly what my superiors asked me to make for next EB meeting.
I just have one question. I may have misunderstood your explanation but does the Gauge Value have to be adjusted manually ? Is there a way to make a "indicator" move as data in "gauge" table changes ?
Thank you in advance,
Ivan
Plase disregard my (stupid 🙂 ) comments. I figured it out. Thanx very much for your work on this website ! It is very helpfull in everyday work !
Another happy reader led astray by the gauge chart instructions in this post.
Jon, Jon, Jon. Note Ivan's explanation for straying from the path of information visualisation rightousness is that a . Gauge/Speedometer chart is exactly what my superiors asked me to make for next EB meeting. .
Another happy reader's job saved by the gauge chart instructions in this post.
@Jon... As long as we have bosses asking for gauges, we will have gauge charts.
@Ivan... you might want to juxtapose the gauge chart with a bullet chart, just so your bosses learn new things - see : http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/07/21/dashboard-bullet-graphs-excel/
Thanx you all for your responses.
I did present them with bullet charts also after reading about for gauge charts among experts.
However they liked gauge charts better. They wanna see how much our company is/isn't in red zone on a specific day in month (i.e. how much we fulfill government legal requirements, for example we have to fulfill certain KPI by minimum 65% or we have to close our business).
Their explanation is that they can see the red zone (and our CEO can point to his underlings how close we are/aren't to the red) and a dial at the first glance on gauge chart while they have to actually try and read the bullet chart to see what is what.
To be completely honest with you I don't see how gauge charts are distorting presented data in this specific case.
Regards, Ivan
Ivan -
A bullet isn't constrained to only black, white, and gray. You can use the red/amber/green color scheme for a bullet as well as for a round gauge (keep the intensities of the colors in control). In fact, I think the difficulty some have at first glance understanding a bullet would be minimized by using light colors instead of grays.
But a bullet takes up much less space, so you can show three or four KPIs in the space of a gauge. If the values use the same scale, then you can also compare adjacent values, which is more difficult using the circumferential scale of a dial.
If the numbers use the same scale or if they can be normalized, you might even be able to substitute a multiple category bar chart for a handful of bullets.
All -
It is possible to educate one's superiors, though I'd advise being more tactful than I ever was 😉 Taking Chandoo's suggestion:
"Hey boss, look at these examples. The bullet shows the same data with the same warning zone and colors, and I can fit a few important pieces of information using bullets in the same space as one important number using a gauge."
Please let me know if there are others links to learn Gauge & Bullet chart. Thanks!
Is there any link to learn gauge and bullet chart
just wondering...as to whether there is a way out to show the percentage instead of the values along.... without using the 3rd line chart. ie just the meter along with percentage values
Chandoo buddy,
Great work man, i like your cricket dashboard also, pl post some dash boards
good luck
Jon Jon, Jon ...
Methinks thou dost protest too much.
Aside from your unprofessional and rather rude labeling of individuals who like the concept and can use the speedometer-type presentation appropriately and effectively as "stupid" "backward" "ignorant", or whatever more diplomatic description you seldom choose to use, I am bothered by your stance on this topic since your website prominently links to a program which itself makes heavy use of guages and touts them as an effective presentation tool.
I personally took Chandoo's guage with Jeff's amendment and present it with live data that updates when the field does. It's a good, informative graphic and I have received compliments on its easy-to-read format, and I thank them for the insight and pass the kudos right over to them. Your "don't do it unless you do it with mine" hypocrisy would be funny if it didn't come so close to being both personally and professionally offensive.
Man, you are a GENIUS!! thanks for the tip!
Brian, kudos to your kudos. I don't get Jon's my-way or highway approach either. Ivan has shown us a real world instance of what is wanted. I have a similar situation in a financial context where one key variable is financial leverage and the simple gauge showing how close we are to a "danger zone" based on multi variables that change constantly works fine for an older generation of users that find the simplicity appealing. Hopefully Jon will relent from his dogma and accept that more sophisticated or technically correct isn't always most appropriate. Thanks Chandoo, Jeff and Amit.
Gauge charts should be should be incorporated into dashboards to provide executives a very quick view of the performances without going too deep into details. Dial charts are the best way to carry out this idea but as everything must be used wit care and professionally
Excel has definitively no ability to produce these kind of very specific visual tools, despite all the efforts invested to force it to do so
This is exactly why I have developed DashboardPlus (first of all for my own needs as a data analyst) which is supposed with all the modesty to close the gap and provide Excel the ability to be a TRUE dashboard creator
Avi
Thanks, graphs were of grt help
Brian, thanks for saying what I was thinking about what Jon Peltier posted here.
Chandoo, thank you for this. We have a fleet of aircraft that move around the country taking aerial images. We have a theoretical maximum for production each day, and our productivity represented as a weekly percentage of that maximum is a good indicator of how well the week went. A speedometer or gauge chart is exactly what I was seeking to quickly communicate how well the last week went to management.
Jon, as you are highly experienced, please feel free to state what you think (um, I meant 'know') is the correct chart to visually communicate this, as a speedometer is clearly the wrong choice.
Average
Min
Max
start 0
red 30 05:20
yelleow 30 03:50
end 40 00:10
blank 100
why can i not make guage vaule with this i wanna show the avaerage time in min:sec on the guage my boss is gonna kill me if i dont have this finished to show him , how can i change the times in the donught and the updated the vaules and guages with a simple formula so if i change the data in the formula like change the mm:sec it changes the chart it works HHHHHHHHHHHHHHeeeeelllllllllllllppppppp
gauge vaule
1
200 minus guage vaule +1
Hi Chandoo,
I did the download of your speedometer charter. It's great!!!
By the way, I love your presentation techniques!!!
Thanks a lot for your help.
Cheers,
António (Lisbon, PT)
Hi,
Speedometer is really very nice.Based on this we are doing presentations.But I am having a doubt. If I change the colour of the doughnut the Indicator is not displaying on the doughnut.What to do for this? Can someone help me in this soon.
Hi there,
I want to thank you explaining it so well because this is what i was crazily looking for and the way you explained it made my life rocking... i look forward to many more such ideas from you ...
Just a comment on the usage of speedometers - they might not be best practice for a boardroom, however, speaking as a chemical engineer at a plant, it is useful for making chemical process snapshot dashboards - something that operators and management can both see and understand instantaneously.
Not everything is for everyone!
Gauges are appropriate in many occasions. The car dashboard is the best example.
I'm working on some real-time dashboards. Will post some samples when done.
I am looking for Gauges of Car Dashboards with two dials (indicators) instead of only one dial
Try DashboardPlus for Excel (www.dashboardmore.com)
Here's a legitimate speedo chart that I'm sure even Stephen Few couldn't argue with:
<IMG SRC = http://screencast.com/t/DFltNlZ2" />
Explanation for non-Australian or non-New Zealand readers:
Speedos: Gentlemen's bathing suit, typically in close form-fitting style.
Bonza: Slang for "remarkable or wonderful"
Crikey Dick: expression of surprise
[...] Download Excel Speedometer / Gauge chart template | Chandoo …Hack together a Gauge Chart in Excel without sweat. Posted on September 9th, 2008 in Charts and Graphs , hacks , Learn Excel – 68 comments … [...]
Hey!
Great site
How can I turn the gauge around, so that the values would increase counter-clockwise.
Thanks for your help
Hi, In order to turn gauge anti clock wise, you simply need to change the order of cells used to plot the needle of the gauge and set the dial labels in the decreasing order.
You can also visit our website http://baansconsulting.com for the solution along with details formula and template.
Thanks for the post! My client wanted six speedometer gauges, but wanted to set the gauge (red/yellow/end) values for each, but not necessarily have the values be in the 0-100 range. For example, one gauge might be cash flow and could start with 100 and max out at 300. Those values of course throw off the donut quite a bit but I got it to work after figuring out some formulas to make it plot the ranges like I wanted while keeping within the 0-100 range for the donut.
I have each chart reading the gauge and indicator values from elsewhere on the sheet, but can't figure out one thing. I want the markers so that we know the range of each section (on your chart sample red is 0-15 so show a 15 mark where red and yellow meet). Is this possible? Since I'm converting the actual gauge values to percentages (out of 100) I need the actual markers to pull from the orginal data, ie 100 to 300.
Hi Diana,
In order to represent values or their % and then show the actual markers on the needle you can refer the below link
http://baansconsulting.com/?p=1620
I'll immediately grab your rss as I can not to find your email subscription hyperlink or e-newsletter service. Do you have any? Kindly permit me recognize in order that I may subscribe. Thanks.
Hi All,
I was also looking for a speedometer to represent a data where I first landed on this website. Since then I am a regular visitor and follower of all the posts (almost). I have tried to make a speedometer using Trignometry which I would like to share with all of you. I was just wondering how do I go about attaching the file or uploading it right here.
The work has been appreciated by my colleagues may be the file can help someone out here. I have learnt a lot of things till now and its time to share my findings with all those like minded people assosciated with CHANDOO.....
Someone guide me how to attach the file.
Regards,
Ashish
I think this is great. We were working on our CO2 reduction and this gauge will show us how close we are to meeting our goals.
How do you handle negative numbers? My range is from -30% to 50%, and ideally I'd like the 0% (or "on target") to be at 12 noon on the chart.
Also, is there any nice way to display value markers at the main gauge points I desire?
Man.. whoever you are.. you are just brilliant & awesome
I created the chart but the needle data label reads "1" not the GV value.
How can I add the GV value to the GV+ data series?
I figured it out. Just need to select and make the label a formula to reference the cell containing the GV value. Hope this helps others.
[…] you really still feel that you must create a chart like this, here is an excellent but complex tutorial on how to do […]
Hi all,
Thanks for this useful article !
I would like to create the same chart but with 4 different colours ....
Could you please explain me how to procede ?
Thank you in advance !
Kind Regards,
Maxence
[…] reminds me of the conversation in the comments over at Chandoo’s blog in his post on Speedo Charts called Hack together a Gauge Chart in Excel without sweat, but which Jon Peltier would likely […]
[…] reminds me of the conversation in the comments over at Chandoo’s blog in his post on Speedo Charts called Hack together a Gauge Chart in Excel without sweat, but which Jon Peltier would likely […]
[…] you really still feel that you must create a chart like this, here is an excellent but complex tutorial on how to do […]
What a fantastic tutorial. Thanks for your help producing the much needed and very clearly visible Speedos.
[…] There’s another alternative for those of you who are fairly proficient with Excel. Some clever folks have kludged speedometer gauges within Excel using a combination of pie and doughnut chart option. Getting to the end result isn’t easy or attractive, but it’s doable. Have a look here for details. […]
Dear Chandu,
I had query regarding how to create link between Form Contorls and Speedo meter chart with this i can create my business file for my organization.
Hi all,
thanks for your article, but for the pie chart, i select F12:F14 and it doesn't work
What is the good selection to have the correct arrow ?
Thanks
I found this tutorial beneficial. I'm an analyst for a Fortune 100 company and was asked to include these types of charts in an executive dashboard. Thanks.
Question: On my speedometer I need to show just the top 90th Percentile. Anything below 90% is failure. Is there any way I can show 90-93 is bad 94-97 is ok and 98-100 is good.
The answer might be simple, but I have been staring at this dashboard and my mind is just about fired right now.
BTW this sight is awesome!!!
I really love your website and I think this is a useful chart! Just because some people do not agree that it is worthwhile, does not mean it isn't worthwhile for somebody! Chandoo, thank you again!
Chandoo - what you all do so well is make things so easy for us. Other sites are a fraud compared to yours.
Thanks for your help!
Chandoo and Peltier are the first sites I look at to solve any thorny problems in Excel - and we great commentary from them as well as great comments from folks. So, thanks!
A couple of points:
1. I know it is the fashion to denigrate bosses and to casually assume that the higher up they are the dumber they get. I can assure you that dumbness is not a prerogative of managers. However, they - just as all people - can get sidetracked by flash and glitter.
2. Gauge charts are not the only ones subject to misuse. If that were the criterion for eliminating them, we might as well eliminate all types of charts. For example, the choice of the y-axis scale in a bar chart influences the significance we place on outlier bars; in line charts, a logarithmic scale can make a curve into a line.
Eliminating charts because they are misused is like eliminating speech because people swear.
Rather, we should seek to educate people continually. I suggest that Chandoo and Peltier both include some 'cautionary comments' or do's and don'ts for each chart.
I managed to get the speedometer graphics okay but can't see how the data label on the needle to change? It keeps telling me "1" instead of 59%. Help please
@Scott
It sounds like a formatting issue as 59% = 0.59 will be rounded up to 1
Select the Label
Right click, format Label
Select Number and set the number format to % or Custom 0.0%
But the "1"is associated with the needle. Not the the value.
Sorry, your suggestion didn't work. The needle is associated with the 1 in the example. I tried changing it to a percentage and it still didn't work.
I know it's been a while since anyone posted to this thread, but I am looking to use a gauge chart in association with tracking project progress. Has anyone come across a way to create a gauge for this purpose?
well, i think this is good enough to get such kind of expirience even if you don't use these charts. i agree there are not a lot of times when smbd will use it. but i have found the solution how to create the gauge and the pointer in the same chart: just add the pointer via the auxiliary axis. and it works!
Hi Chandoo and everyone!
At this point I have to explain a few things. It's very important to choose the right chart type. Gauges are awesome tools for measuring single values.
The plan vs. actual is another thing. It's possible to create variance chart using gauges. Just see this screenshot.
http://imgur.com/qg5RR1u
(I've blured the tool name and details for ad purposes)
Best Regards,
Istvan
Hi there,
please try our free gauge chart tool.
Check 'Table of contents' and the Add-in section!
https://offvis.com/create-excel-dashboard/
Regards,
John
[…] Hack together a Gauge Chart in Excel without sweat […]
Hello,
Thank you for this helpful tutorial.
However, how to make gauge generation automatic with an e-database?
Thank you in advance, truthfully yours
Hello,
It is not possible to automate it completely, however you can create a link in the box used to create the gauge containing the data concerned from your database and that you want to gauge.
cordially