Dashboards are daily staple for some of us who need to report status to our bosses, present them in weekly meetings or generally CC half the world with what is up on our end.
There are several ways in which you can spice up the dashboard, one of the simple things to do is, to replace the standard Red, Green & Amber with Smileys 🙁 😐 🙂 Just follow these 3 simple steps add smileys to your dashboard.
-
First create a dashboard as usual
Of course, this is what you do everyday, so move on to next one
-
Add a column to display smiley symbols
The standard spreadsheet fonts like Arial, Verdana or Comic Sans (ahem) do not have smiley symbols as characters. You need to change the font to “Wingdings” (just select the cells, hit ctrl+shit+f to change the font), in this font, the characters JKL stand for
:) :| :(respectively.Thus, in order to show smileys in the new column you can write a simple if formula like
=IF(target < sales,"J",IF(target > sales,"L","K")) -
Finally, add conditional formatting to change the smiley color
Select the smiley cells, and launch conditional formatting dialog to specify conditions to change the color of cell contents. For eg. red when sales < target, blue when sales > target and gray otherwise as shown below:
So go ahead, wow someone with a smiley dashboard.
9 Responses to “CP044: My first dashboard was a failure!!!”
CONGRATS on the book!
Thanks for this podcast. It's great to hear about your disaster and recovery. It's a reminder that we're all human. None of this skill came easily.
Thank you Oz. I believe that we learn most by analyzing our mistakes.
Hey chandoo
this really a good lesson learned
but as I have already stated in one of my previous email that it would be more helpful for us if you could release videos of your classes for us
thanks
The article gave me motivation, especially you describing the terrible disaster that you faced but how to get back from the setbacks. Thanks for that, but with video this will be more fun.
Hi Nafi,
Thanks for your comments. Please note that this is (and will be) audio podcast. For videos, I suggest subscribing to our YouTube channel. No point listening to audio and saying its not video.
You always motivate me with respect of the tools in excel. How we can really exploit it to the fullest. Thanks very much
Thank you Amankwah... 🙂
Thank you very much, Chandoo, for your excellent lessons, I am anxious to learn so valuable tips and tricks from you, keep up the great job!
I truly appreciate the transcripts of the podcasts, because as a speaker of English as a second language, it allows me to fully understand the material. It'd be great if you can add transcripts to your online courses too, I am sure people will welcome this feature.
Dashboards for Excel has arrived in Laguna Beach, CA! Thanks!
Now I need to make time to "learn and inwardly digest" its contents as one of my high school teachers would admonish us!