Time for a quick but very handy Excel FORMULA trick.
You have two tables. ORDERS & PRODUCTS. You want to see all the orders if the product name is mentioned in the other table. Thanks to the new FILTER() function in Excel, we can do this easily now.
The data setup
For the purpose of this example, assume you have a table named orders and another table named products.
The formula to filter one table by another list
Here is the formula to fetch all orders for the products listed in the other table.
=FILTER(orders, COUNTIFS(products, orders[Product]))How does this formula work?
This is a two-part puzzle.
PART 1 – COUNTIFS with Arrays:
Let’s look at the COUNTIFS portion first:
COUNTIFS(products, orders[Product])This formula returns an array of 1s & 0s
- It will be 1 whenever the orders[Product] matches one of the products table items.
- Else it will be 0
- The size of this array will be same as orders table. So if orders table has 100 rows, then you will get 100 ones or zeros here.
PART 2 – FILTER
The NEW FILTER() function in Excel can take a list or table and filter it based on a criteria.
So, for example, =FILTER(orders, orders[Product]=”Milk Bars”) would filter all rows where the product names is Milk Bars.
The trick is to use COUNTIFS output (which will be a bunch of 1s & 0s) as the criteria for FILTER. When Excel sees these 1s&0s, it’s going to include the rows with 1 & exclude the rows with 0.
Thus, producing the relevant orders for us.
Here is a quick demo of the formula in action:
Checking the reverse – Filter list when values are not in the other list
We can use the same approach to check for reverse too. This is helpful in finding which customers did not purchase in a month or which products did not sell in a given country etc. Here is an example formula for that:
=FILTER(orders, COUNTIFS(products, orders[Product])=0)Problems with this approach:
While this is a great technique, if you have large amounts of data then the formula could be slow. In such cases, I recommend using Power Query to handle the job. We can use inner join in Power Query merge operation to filter one table by merging it with another table.
For more on Power Query, please read this article.
Example workbook
If you need a sample file to practice this formula, click here and download it.
How do you deal with this problem?
I have been using the FILTER(… COUNTIFS()) approach for quick scenarios and Power Query Merge option for more complicated situations. What about you? How are you solving this problem? Please share your thoughts or questions in the comments section.
18 Responses to “Best Charts to Compare Actual Values with Targets – What is your take?”
Great post. I can't vote, though, because the answer I want to put down is "it depends". As with all visualisations, you've got to take into account your audience, your purpose, technical skills, where it will be viewed, etc.
I'm with Andy: It depends. Some I would use, some I might use, some I won't touch with a barge pole.
Naturally I have comments 🙂
The dial gauge, though familiar, is less easy to read than a linear type of chart (thermometer or bullet). It's really no better than the traffic lights, because all it can really tell you is which category the point falls in: red, yellow, or green.
By the same token, pie charts are so familiar, people don't know they can't read them. Remember how long it takes kids to learn to read an analog clock?
Bullet charts don't show trends.
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or ine component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
[...] Best Charts to Compare Actual values with Targets (or Budgets … [...]
I voted for #6 even though I agree with the other comments that it depends.
The majority of the votes are for the #2, thermometer chart. I still have yet to understand what happens when you are above plan/goal, which was brought up in yesterday's post.
Also, I agree with Jon in that it would be better to flip the series and make the filled part the target or goal and the line or marker the actual.
I am also a fan of using text when appropriate if the data is among other metrics in a type of dashboard. Calling it out by saying actual and % achievement is a good option.
Another "it depends" vote. Are you just looking at one or are you comparing a number of targets with actuals? You didn't include a text box. The problem with sentences is that they can get lost in a page of gray text. A text box can call attention to the numbers and line them up effectively.
I'm with Jon: "Some I would use, some I might use, some I won’t touch with a barge pole" and I'm surprised that some of your readers voted for the last group.
Jon says:
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or line component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
Why does this make more sense? I like 6 the way it is, although I would use a heavy dash for the plan/target marker.
"It depends" is also my take. What I usually try to drill into my clients dashboard design is the fu ndamental difference between spot results (am I on target for this month) and long term trends.. I always try to create 3 different set of graphs to represent real perormance:
- spot results vs objectives
- cumulative results vs objectives
- long-term trend (moving average) mostly) to see where we're going
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Jon says:
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or line component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
Why does this make more sense? I like 6 the way it is, although I would use a heavy dash for the plan/target marker.
I totally agree, Bob. I would normally favour a line for the target and a column for the actual, you can see quite easily then which columns break through the line, then.
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Thermometer charts: "Not appropriate when actual values exceed targets" - this is easily solved by making the "mercury" portion a different color from the border, then you can clearly see where the expected range ends and the actual values keep going.
People seem to knock gauges quite a bit in dashboarding, but trying to show comparison of realtime data between operating sites and targets for each site can easily be done with a bank of gauges that have the optimal operating points at 12 o'clock.
The human eye is great at pattern stripping, and any deviation of a gauge from the expected 12 position will quickly register with an operator and attract his attention. Using a colour background, or meter edge, will also indicate the sensitivity of a particular site.
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[…] Best charts to compare actual with target values […]
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I am wondering how will the plotting work, for some of the targets which may have been achieved before time. E.g. for the month of Jul the target was 226 and the actual was 219. So the chart will show a deficit in meeting the target by 7 points but what if this 7 may have been completed earlier in month of June. So ideally it not a deficit.