So you have decided to up your game with Excel and / or Power BI this year and now ravenously looking for books to read. You have come to the right place. Here is my list of recommended best Excel books, and books on Power BI, visualization, dashboards, VBA, Macros and analytics.
Use below links to navigate the relevant section of this page:
Best Excel Books
Excel 2016 Bible by John Walkenbach
If you are new to Excel or have used it for a while, you can’t go wrong with John’s tome. This 1,100 page tome covers everything from getting started with Excel to some nifty advanced use cases. It is a good reference book to have on your desk or in the team library. Despite its size, this is an easy read.
Excel 2016 by John Walkenbach on Amazon
Microsoft Excel Data Analysis & Business Modeling by Wayne Winston
I bought Wayne’s book in 2013 (same book, for Excel 2013) to learn all about how to apply business modeling, analytics and statistical analysis techniques in Excel. This is a very practical and insightful book and a must have for anyone working in advanced analytics, reporting, modeling or optimization space.
Microsoft Excel Data Analysis & Business Modeling on Amazon
Data Smart by John Foreman
Data Smart teaches all about data science, machine learning, statistical analysis and business optimization and then shows you how to implement fancy algorigthms using Excel. I recommend this book to anyone in the space of analytics or reporting. John has excellent penmanship and wicked sense of humor. You will find it hard to put down this book. I read and re-read this book several times.
Best books on data & visualization
Storytelling with Data by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
This book is on my to-read list. Many of us are in the profession of story telling and communication. Working with data and coming up with effective storytelling is vital for our success. Storytelling with Data gives you that guidance and makes you a better professional.
Storytelling with Data on Amazon
Information Dashboard Design by Stephen Few
Stephen Few’s classic book on dashboard design is what helped me become an expert in making awesome dashboards. I have the previous edition of his book and refer to it every now and then when I need some inspiration or smack on the back for going with a stupid design. Read it cover to cover and implement as much as you can.
Information Dashboard Design on Amazon
Best Power BI Books
Now things get tricky. Power BI is a rapidly evolving software. So any book on it, is bound to be outdated in a month’s time. I learned all my Power BI by experimenting, reading blogs and watching YouTube videos. That said, Power BI is not one software. It is a combination of three different tools:
- Power Query to process and clean data
- Power Pivot for modeling & analyzing data
- Power BI Visuals for creating outputs
I think parts 1 & 2 of Power BI puzzle (Power Query & Power Pivot) are the hardest things to learn. This is where books can help you tremendously. Since you will be learning the technique and language more than screen features, a book on Power Query or Power Pivot tends to have longer shelf life. So keep this in mind where reading my book recommendations.
Beginning Power BI by Dan Clark
Power BI is a new & rapidly changing technology. Hence, getting a reliable book on it is hard. Someone recommended this to me and I find the topics quite relevant and useful for a new Power BI user.
Power Pivot and Power BI by Rob Collie & Avi Singh
Rob & Avi do a good job of explaining Power BI & Power Pivot for traditional Excel users. If you are coming from Excel background and want to learn Power BI, pick up this book. Get the kindle copy as this uses eTextbook format which works very well on your tablet or PC.
Power Pivot and Power BI on Amazon
Learn to write DAX by Matt Allington
DAX can be very daunting and gnarly when you are getting started. I find Matt’s book approachable and elegant. This will help you overcome your fear for DAX and make useful calculations out of your data. Use it to take your reporting to next level.
M is for (Data) Monkey by Ken Puls & Miguel Escobar
This cheekily named guide will help you navigate the murky, unexplained waters of Power Query. That said, the book is 3 years old, so it is WAY behind times when it comes to what is new & better in Power Query. Microsoft has rapidly changed what & how of Power Query in the last 18 months and some of the techniques in the book feel outdated. Nevertheless, a good book to have. Get the kindle version, that way if Ken decides to upgrade the book, you will have new content for free.
M is for (Data) Monkey on Amazon
The Definitive Guide to DAX by Marco Russo & Alberto Ferrari
The Italians book is gold standard when it comes to writing ninja level DAX. Unfortunately, this book is not what you need if you are a beginner. Start with either Matt’s book or Rob’s book and graduate to this one. It will help you understand inner workings of DAX and make it your genie to pull of awesome magic from your data.
The Definitive Guide to DAX on Amazon
Best Excel VBA & Macros books
Excel VBA Programming for Dummies by John Walkenbach
John’s book is the must have if you want to learn VBA programming in a comprehensive, clear way. It comes with many practical exercises, tips & best practices. I have the 2010 version of this and it helped me immensely when I was learning VBA programming.
Excel VBA Programming for Dummies on Amazon
Excel 2016 Power programming by Mike Alexander & Richard Kusleika
Mike & Dick are known for their generosity and creativity in Excel space, naturally this become reflects that. It is a treasure trove of good tips, examples and code base.
Excel 2016 Power programming on Amazon
My *own* books
Hey, I am an author too. I like to toot my horn once in a while. So if you are looking for books to polish your skills, consider these two.
PS: I am in the middle of writing my first Power BI book. This will be a beginner’s guide to everything Power BI. Watch out for an announcement about this.
The VLOOKUP Book by Chandoo
Learn everything from simple vlookup to complex INDEX, MATCH combinations in one book. Don’t be fooled by the name. This one goes beyond VLOOKUP and teaches you many powerful formula techniques when it comes to looking up data.
Excel Dashboards Book by Chandoo & Jordan Goldmeir
Create powerful, insightful and effective business dashboards using this handy guide. Learn all about charting best practices, VBA driven automation and more in this book. Also learn how Power Query and Power Pivot can revolutionize your workbook’s calculation engine.
Excel Dashboards Book on Amazon
What is your favorite Excel or Power BI Book?
Of course this list won’t be complete without your recommendation. So tell me dear reader, what is your favorite Excel or Power BI book? Post your answers in the comments section.
Note about the links in this page:
I am using my Amazon affiliate links in this post when recommending the books. That means, if you click on the links and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission from Amazon. This has no impact on my recommendation. I have personally read most of the books and recommend them even if there is no commission involved.
49 Responses to “Project Management Dashboard / Project Status Report using Excel [Part 6 of 6]”
[...] display milestones Part 4: Time sheets and Resource management Issue Trackers & Risk Management Project Status Reporting – Dashboard Bonus Post: Using Burn Down Charts to Understand Project [...]
Excellent!
I was looking forward to this and you've done it again...Shame I can't claim it was all my own work 😉
ps hope you're getting enough sleep
Excelent !!! Tks to share your knowledge with us.
Izabel
Sao Paulo - Brazil
Nice job!.
I'm also keen on PM Excel Dashboards. Please, take a look at
http://screencast.com/t/TyaxH5r4mDf
That's one example of my Project control Spreadsheets.
Cheers
Hi Miguel,
Do you share your PM Excel Dashboards? It looks awesome.
Regards,
Germán
Hi M. Miguel,
Can you share your Excel Dashboards? Awesome work BTW.
Regards,
Michel Levesque
Can you share the PM excel template?
[...] haired Dilbert hat zum Abschluss einer Artikeserie zum Thema Projektmanagement mit Excel eine Anleitung zum Bau eines Projekt-Dashboards veröffentlicht. Ein Dashboard ist eine Visualisierungsform für große Mengen von meist [...]
Quite a nice and helpful article. I am sure excel is one of the most used application across many many big companies. And your info on project status update using excel would surely be usefull. Keep up the good work on this blog site. Also to share there are some open source flash-based graphing and charting solution which caould also be used on any project..
http://askwiki.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-to-create-quality-charts-using.html
@Alex, Izabel .. thank you 🙂
@Miguel: Thank you. Your dashboard looks very good. It is inclined towards the budget and finances of the project. I have kept those aspects out of this series. May be I will revisit the financial aspect of projects at a later point.
@Rishil: Thank you. Yes, you can create flash based charts (or even simple image based charts) and embed them in a project dashboard that can be published to the team using intranet (like sharepoint). This is how large companies usually do it. Thanks for sharing the Askwiki article.
Great looking dashboard!! Do you have a version for the Mac versions of Office available?
Thanks
Chandoo,
this is great piece of collating info.I liked it and shall try using it in office.
Thanks for the all hard work behind this.
Chandoo,
Kudos. This is really as simple as it gets for laymen. We did this sort of stuff in Consulting - but this can now become really simple for people. Will have my team look at this! Great work.
thanks,
Mrigank
[...] I suggest reading my 7 part series on project management using excel. Starting with Excel Gantt Charts to Project Dashboards. [...]
Just downloaded the project management template bundle...great!
Have you done anywork on a Project Portfolio Dashboard template?
@Bw... Thanks for getting a copy of the templates. 🙂 I have worked on few assignments where we built such templates. But these are similar to other regular dashboard templates. I will share some of these ideas in a later post someday. Meanwhile if you have any ideas on how to structure project portfolio dashboard, let me know using comments or email.
[...] to display milestones Time sheets and Resource management Issue Trackers & Risk Management Project Status Reporting – Dashboard Bonus Post: Using Burn Down Charts to Understand Project [...]
[...] display milestones Time sheets and Resource management Part 5: Issue Trackers & Risk Management Project Status Reporting – Dashboard Bonus Post: Using Burn Down Charts to Understand Project [...]
[...] to display milestones Time sheets and Resource management Issue Trackers & Risk Management Project Status Reporting – Dashboard Bonus Post: Using Burn Down Charts to Understand Project [...]
Thanks fro the great ideas! To get a sense of the layout and design of a Dashboard more geared toward Cost and Schedule anaysis, check out the example Dashboard at http://www.ProjectDashboards.com which was built entirely in excel.
hey,
i just need a simple Chart where by i can show some of the projects by % wise. no dates required.
1st column Project name and 2nd column will be status (filled with %). can you pls help me out.
Thanks.
@DS... if you have excel 2007, you can use data bars in conditional formatting for this purpose.
Hi Chandoo - this series is an excellent resource and tutorial, thank you for sharing.
When I sat down to consider what my dashboard should look like, one of the most important features for me is to be able to maintain version control and to show simply on what version is on display.
Apart from the naming convention of the file name, is there a good way to do this within a dashboard? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts!
@Larph: Welcome 🙂
> You can do version control thru Macros (but always remember that your audience can disable macros)
> Another option is to use a static time stamp / version number in the title page of dashboard that you update manually whenever you make changes to the file
> In excel 2010, you can keep track of file versions from File menu. This can be used to select a previous version of dashboard.
> Best option is to use a version control system like SVN or upload files to Sharepoint or something like that. This will take care of versioning for you (although it is a bit technical and dashboard audience may have difficulty figuring the versions out).
> The easiest option is to use filenames and the CELL() formula to get the version number (or date) from the filename so you can show it on the dashboard.
Hi Chandoo... I'm following you from Brazil...
I would like to thank you for the tips about excel, mainly with dashboards ... It helped me a lot …
Take care...
Di
On the dashboard when I print, the text is blanked out in the middle of the Issues list - suggestions on how to fix?
[...] Project Management Dashboard in Excel [...]
Hi Chandoo, do you have an equivalent Project Management Dashboard / Project Status Report for MS Office 2010?
As a Microsoft trainer I'm interested in your choice of Excel for project management. I'm assuming that you've tried Microsoft Project and have decided not to use it? We get folks on our MS Project courses who've tried to use Excel for PM purposes and none of them have made such an impressive project plan, but I wonder is it worth all the effort?
This looks very interesting. How may I be a part of this
Does this template work in Google Spreadsheets?
Many thanks for sharing your expertise with us. Keep up the good work 🙂
Heya i'm for the first time here. I came across this board and I to find It really helpful & it helped me out a lot. I am hoping to offer one thing again and aid others like you helped me.
Hi Chandoo,
Your PM dashboards impressed me so much that I've downloaded the Portfolio and Project Management package. All of the documents look very professional.
I was going through the Portfolio dashboard and I had a question.
When I enter in additional holidays they are highlighted in the gantt chart. Is it possible so that the name of the holiday shows up in the highlighted area of the gantt chart.
Thanks
Adam
[...] Project Status Dashboard [...]
[...] Project Status Dashboard in Excel [...]
[...] Project Management Dashboard in Excel [...]
can you confirm that the downloads will work on a mac - excel for mac v14.3.6
thanks
Made a slight variation on the schedule sheet,
1. Add a date column for start
2. In week column cell use =weeknum() and link to date cell
3. Hide week column
When you enter in a date for each task the week number is populated accordingly
simple but more effective, you can also dynamically link the date cell to your MSP project file for even more automation!!
I purchased a copy of the project management dashboard excel file. I misplaced the password to unlock the file and make modification. Can you please resend the password.
Thank much in advance...
Hi there! I just would like to give you a big thumbs up for your great info
you've got right here on this post. I'll be returning to your website
for more soon.
I bought ur project management template just want to know how to hide the budget section from portfolio?
Hi, Thanks - very good job you've prepared!
You've inspired me as well 🙂
Best regards
Hello!
I am using a gantt chart template which i got from your website. All is good just when I add all my acitivities in data spreadsheet and then go back to gantt chart to view them, I only see first 9 and then I need to keep scrolling for the next ones. is it possible to see most of the activities if not all in the single frame.
thanks for answering!
This is my first time pay a visit at here and i am actually happy to read all at alone place.
I am interested in your dashboard; downloaded the locked version, unable to use it...do you have a user guide that is available that I can see and use on the locked version?
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Hi,
I downloaded the PM dashboard and the gantt chart only has dates till the year 2016. How do I change this to include 2017 FY as well.
When I enter a activity for this year , it fails to show up on the chart.
Hi
Would.like to purchase the project management .kits
Pls share the payment link in INR
Also share your contact number to speak with you
Regards
Hari
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