This is a guest post by Myles Arnott from Clarity Consultancy Services – UK.
- Part 1: Introduction & overview
- Part 2: Dynamic Charts
- Part 3: VBA behind the Dynamic Dashboard a simple example
- Part 4: Pulling it all together
Part 1 of dynamic dashboard tutorial introduced the purpose and general functionality of the model. In this post we are going to look at the first 4 charts and see how they work.
Chart 1 and Chart 2 : Flexible pie charts
These are Dynamic pie charts with the option to select the KPI, period and product/salesperson to be analyzed. As both pie charts use the same functionality I will focus on the chart in CH1.
The key to the flexibility of these otherwise simple pie charts is taking a little time to set up the chart source data.
1) Selection criteria
We want to be able to select data by product group and month and be able to choose the key performance indicator to report. We also want to be able to report on all product groups and for all periods.
To ensure that only valid criteria are selected, each selection is driven from a data validation list driven from a named range:
2) The formula
The main formula being used is the SUMIFS(Sum range, Criteria range, criteria,…). This was a new formula in 2007 and provides a simpler solution to the SUMPRODUCT() formula.
So the formula in cell D24 in CH1 is:
=SUMIFS(INDIRECT($C$21),Sales_Per,B24,Product,$C$19,Period,$C$20)
Right, lets break it down for you:
Sum range
To create flexibility around the values returned I have used the INDIRECT formula to reference a named range. The named ranges are Count, Total_sales KPI_1 and Total_GP. I have then referenced these three named ranges within the data validation list.
Criteria range 1 and criteria 1
This matches the sales person in B24 against the list of sales people (named range Sales_Per) in the data tab.
Criteria range 2 and criteria 2
This matches the product in C19 against the list of products (named range Product) in the data tab.
Criteria range 3 and criteria 3
This matches the period in C20 against the list of periods (named range Period) in the data tab.
The result of bringing all of this together is that the value returned is:
- The value range as defined in C21
- The sales person as defined in B24
- The product as defined in C19
- The period as defined in C20
3) The final step – Dealing with “All”
The final element to enable the fully flexibility is to allow “all” to be selected for product and period. This gives you four options:
- Product and period specified
- Product specified, all periods
- All products, period specified
- All products and all periods
To manage this I have created a column for each option with a variation of the formula defined above. Finally I used a column as source data for the chart which pulls though the relevant information based on the selections made. They look like this:
I leave the interpretation of the actual formulas to you.
CH3 and CH4 Flexible line charts
These are dynamic line charts with the option to select the KPI, period and product/salesperson to be analyzed. As both line charts use the same functionality I will focus on the chart in CH3.
1) Selection criteria
This uses the same functionality as used in the pie chart illustration.
2) The formula
Once again the basic formula is the same as in the pie chart illustration.
The additional step is to allow flexibility around the period to display for the trend. This is achieved by selecting a period from a validation list. The following periods are then looked up from the validation list using HLOOKUP and MATCH. First take a look at how it works:
Now the formula is:
=HLOOKUP("YTD",Period_List,MATCH($C$23,Period_List2,0)+2,FALSE)
How this formula works?
C23 contains the first cell from which starting month can be changed. Based on that, we need to increment the month value for subsequent columns by 1, 2 and 3. The above is the formula for first such month. If you look at the downloaded file carefully, you will know why this works. 🙂
3) The final step – Dealing with “All”
As with the pie charts illustration the final step is to enable the user to select all. As the functionality as very similar to that used in the pie charts I will allow you to work through how it works.
Creating other Dynamic Charts in the Dashboard:
Links for how to create the other charts in this report can be found below:
- Boxcharts [Link]
- Scrolling report [Link]
- Competitor analysis [Link]
- Use of camera tool [Link]
- In cell microcharts [Link]
What Next?
We now know how to create the charts for the Dynamic Dashboard. Next week we will look at Part 3 VBA behind the Dynamic Dashboard, by studying a simple example.
Download the complete dashboard
Go ahead and download the dashboard excel file. The dynamic dashboard can be downloaded here [mirror, ZIP Version]
It works on Excel 2007 and above. You need to enable macros and links to make it work.
Added by PHD:
Myles has taken various important concepts like Microcharts, form controls, macros, camera snapshot, formulas etc and combined all these to create a truly outstanding dashboard. I am honored to feature his ideas and implementation here on PHD. I have learned several valuable tricks while exploring his dashboard. I am sure you would too.
If you like this tutorial please say thanks to Myles.
Related Material & Resources
- Excel Dynamic Charts – Tutorials, Examples and Demos
- Excel Dashboards – Tutorials & Templates Section of PHD
- 6 Part Tutorial on Making KPI Dashboards in Excel
This is a guest post by Myles Arnott from Clarity Consultancy Services – UK.
31 Responses to “Beautiful Budget vs. Actual chart to make your boss love you”
Would be considerably easier just to have a table with the variance shown.
On Step 3, how do you "Add budget and actual values to the chart again"?
There are a few ways to do it.
Easy:
1) Copy just the numbers from both columns (Select, CTRL+C)
2) Select the chart and hit CTRL+V to paste. This adds them to chart.
Traditional:
1) Right click on chart and go to "select data..."
2) From the dialog, click on "Add" button and add one series at a time.
One more way to accomplish it is just select the columns into chart. Press Ctrl+C and then press Ctrl+V
Regards
Neeraj Kumar Agarwal
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work for me in Excel 2010. The "Var 1" and "Var 2" columns cannot combine two fonts to display the symbol and the figure side-by-side.
Secondly, there is no option to Click on “Value from cells” option when formatting the label options. The only options provided are Series Name, Category Name or Value.
@TheQ47... the emoji font also has normal English letters, so if you use that font, then you should be ok. I am assuming your computer doesn't have that font or hasn't been upgraded for emoji support.
Reg. Excel 2010, you can manually link each label to a cell value. Just select one label at a time (click on labels, wait a second, click on an individual label) and press = and link it to the label var 1 or var 2.
I am using excel 2010, please explain how to apply Step 12
Regards
Neeraj Kumar Agarwal
Hi Neeraj,
"Value from cells" option is only available in Excel 2013 or above. In older versions, you have to manually adjust the label value by linking each label seperately.
Read this please: https://chandoo.org/wp/change-data-labels-in-charts/
Sir, you are just awesome.
Your creativity has no limit.
Regards
Neeraj Kumar Agarwal
Hi Chandoo,
I just found your website, and really love it. It helps me a lot to be an Excel expert 😉
Currently I am facing with a problem at step 11:
Var1 Var2
D30%
A5%
B0%
B4%
B7%
C10%
C13%
D27%
I42%
Though at mapping table, I used windings, here formula uses calibra. How I can change it? I am able to change only the whole cell. In this case numbers will be Windings too.
Thanks for your help!
Hi Mariann... Welcome to Chandoo.org and thanks for your comment.
If you wanted to use symbols from wingdings and combine them with % numbers, then you need to setup two labels. One with symbol, in wingdings font and another with value in normal font. Just add the same series again to the chart, make it invisible, add labels. You may need to adjust the alignment / position of label so everything is visible.
[…] firs article explains how you can enhance your charts with symbols. You can simply insert any supported symbol into your data and charts. To some extend you can […]
You're a good person, thank you to share your knowledge with us, I will try to do in my work
Great visualization of variance. My question is that is this possible in powerbi?
How would you go about it?
HELLO, WHY CANT I FIND VALUES FOR LABELS IN EXCEL 2013
Dear chanddo sir,
What to do if we have dynamic range for Chart. How this will work. can you able to make the same thing works on dynamic range.
Sir Chandoo,
Good Day!
First, I'd like to say that I am very grateful for your work and for sharing all these things with us.
I tried to do this chart but it seems that the symbols don't work with text (abs(var%),"0%") unless we keep the Windings font style.
The problem is, it converts the text into symbol as well and you wont see the 0% anymore. I'm using Windows 7.
WOW - Segoe UI Emoji
This is the greatest discovery for me this month 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
Here's my two-cents:
https://wmfexcel.com/2019/02/17/a-compelling-chart-in-three-minutes/
Sir This is awesome chart, and very easy to made because of your way to explain is very simple , everyone can do. Thank you
one problem i am facing, I hv made this chart , but when i am inserting data table to chart it is showing two times , how can i resolve this
in this chart when i am adding new month data for example first i made this chart jan to mar but when i add data for the apr month graphs updated automatically but labels are missing for that new month
Hi Renuka,
Please make sure the formulas for labels are also calculated for extra months. Just drag down the series and set label range to appropriate address.
So I am playing with the Actual chart here - but amounts are bigger than your - you have 600 as Budget - my budget is 104,000 - is there a way to shorten that I am unaware of
thank you - I LOVE YOUR SITE
Thanks for the tips and tricks on Excel. In the Planned versus Actual chart examples, you use multiple values (ex. multiple Categories in above). How can this be done when we have only 1 set of values? For example if I have only this:
Planned Actual
SOW Budget 417480 367551
How can I create a single bar chart like the one above?
Thank you Chandoo.
This one is just perfect for my Quarterly Review presentation on Operational Budget against Actual Performance for the Hospital I'm currently working with.
Just Subscribed today (10 minutes ago)
Is there a way to make the table of data into a pivot table to be able to add a slicer for the graph due to many different categories and months?
Hi, I tried to modify you template with something appropriate for me, and I found a problem. this template was modified by me started with excel 2010, then 2016 and finally 2019. Same thing - somehow appear an error - or didn't show the emoticons for positive percentage or doubled the emoticons for some rows. I suspect to be from excel. if is need it I can sand you my xlsx for study. Please help if you can.
Hi Chandoo,
Could you please check the Var Formula in Step1. You have mentioned budget-actual and when i did this i got different values but when reversed like actual-budget i got the actual value what you have demonstrated in step1.
Please share your view.
This is a great chart (budget vs. actual). However, in trying recreate it, I cannot color in the UP Down bars individually, and they all become formatted with the same color. I'm using Office 365. Look forward to the feedback.
Thanks.
Dan
pls explain in detail step 7
While in the Excel sheet you have used following formula for Var
Var = Actual - Budget
But
in the note, you have written
Var = Budget - Actual
Good Presentation and Data information.thank you so much chandoo.