Today, let’s learn how to make an impressive map chart with Excel. Something like this:
Step 1: Set up your Data for the Map Chart
You need geographical fields (district / county/ state or country), few numeric values to create the map chart in Excel. Here is the layout of the data I’ve used.
I will explain the logic for “Calc. Column” in Step 3.
Step 2: Create “selection mechanism” with Data Validation
Select a blank cell to set up “drop-down” selection mechanism. This is where we will select one of the products to show on the map.
Go to Data ribbon & click on “Data Validation”. Change the rule type to “List” and point to the list of products. You can set up this list elsewhere in the spreadsheet or directly point to the table headers.
Related: Learn more about setting up “drop-down lists in Excel”
Step 3: Calculate the values for “selected” product
I recommend using either XLOOKUP or INDEX MATCH to calculate the values of “selected” product for our table.
Here is the XLOOKUP formula I’ve used. This assumes the drop-down list selection is in cell G6.
=XLOOKUP($G$6,
Table2[[#Headers],[Mint Chip Choco]:[After Nines]],
Table2[@[Mint Chip Choco]:[After Nines]])The above formula looks up the G6 (selection values) against table headers and returns the corresponding product sales values to the calculated column.
Step 4: Make the Map chart
Select the geographical fields & the calculated columns alone, then go to Insert Ribbon & click on the Filled Map chart option (see below).
Customize the map chart colors & title if you want.
Place chart next to the selection cell and you will have a dynamic map chart in Excel, like below:
Download the sample file
If you need a hand with this technique, check out the example workbook.
Video Tutorial – How to make map charts in Excel?
I made a video explaining this process with a few more examples & tips. Check out the video below or my YouTube channel.
Known issues & problems with Maps in Excel
Excel map charts are not perfect. Here are some known issues with it.
- Not all geographical data is supported: In many countries, you can’t show data by district or city or regions. For example, if you try to make the same chart with districts of an Indian state, the map will not work.
- No support for LAT / LONG or street addresses: You can’t create map charts with specific point information (like addresses or coordinates).
- Incorrect maps: When a geographical boundary is disputed (due to wars or whatever), the map chart doesn’t show correct outlines or altogether omits the regions.
- Unable to zoom: You can’t zoom in to a specific region with the map charts.
Possible Alternatives:
You can use Power BI or Tableau other data visualization tools to make the maps. They allow working with more granular data or can let you control the zoom for your maps.
Got a question?
Do you have a question or doubt about using map charts in Excel? Leave a comment so I can help.
29 Responses to “Customer Service Dashboard using Excel [Dashword Week]”
Looks good, Mara. Keep up the good work!
Thx Mara, your work is great, congratulations...
wow ! Great stuff Mara !!
I am amazed on the work you did !
What I like about your dashboard
1. The first impression is the colors used. Very smart use of colors that matches each other, easy on the eye - make people wants to find out more !
2. Clear message shown for the tweetboard for Quick overview on the state of situation.
3. Use of creative titles for your charts "Information Desk".
4. Clear and uncluttered charts. Gives reader a clear perspective with good use of charts colors too.
5. Good use of Legend to describe what color meant "Highest Sales out of the three months"
6. Of course, good use of Check boxes and Slider bar to offer interactiveness on your charts.
Suggestions
1. You may want to consider formatting your Y and X axis labels to show thousands, in $500K format instead of $500,000, so you can even made your chart look much neater.
2. Budget Variant Chart - This one is special...I took a second look and try to understand it. I am not sure if this is the best chart to visualize Sales VS Budget and Variances. And the Variance of 16.19% is positive, so u may want to use conditional formatting to make it green color, red if negative.
Overall is Great Work and Great Effort !!! Keep it up and I am so proud of you !
Francis Chin
http://www.francischin.com
Great Work Maya, just wondering if "5" Scrollable list of various gift shop items, can compare the previous 2 and current month selected in the above picklist, just one more suggestion if we can use top 5 gift category by using donut and bar mix chart to show sales mix for different months
Chandoo I would like to thank you for posting such helpful tricks for creating dashboards, I have learned a lot from your KPI Dashboard demo, I have created one dashboard to compare performce of Sales Associates, thaks a lot again
Thanks for the idea! Great job! You are giving me a lot of inspiratons!
Thanks everyone for the nice comments. I'm such a novice at this so I was so grateful for Chandoo's class and for everyone who submits ideas on his blog.
Francis: Thanks so much for your comments. You're an inspiration. For the budget variance chart, I actually got that idea from one of Chandoo's post on budget vs actual. There was one that was simple and easy to read so I learned how to do that and made it dynamic. I'm open to any other ideas you have for budget vs actual. I'm always looking for ways to improve.
Sabrina: Thank you for you for your suggestion on the top 5.
Dear Mara,
Great work.
But i one suggestion regarding the INFORMATION DESK graph is consist of month but which year it belong is not there if it would be there it would be great.
Warm Regards
Bhushan Sabbani
+91 98208 26012
Thanks for this idea... Great Stuff !!
Excellent dashboard Mara.
The best I like about the dashboard is the choice of colors. They are cool and not distracting. Thanks for sharing the file.
@Chandoo
Thanks for the dashboard week Chandoo. I am learnt a lot in the last 2 days. I am excited over the next 3 days! 🙂
Regards,
Ravi.
Great work Mara ! Thanks for sharing .
Mara, I liked the line, "Need to be more helpful." Our government needs to print this line, laminate it and post it in all government offices for the staff to see.
Hi there, i have been recently visiting this blog it is really great, the best one for Excel, wish Chandoo great success ahead.
I have one query, if you protect the data sheet the chart with the checkbox gives and error saying the data is protected and cannot be modified, is there a way around. This is cause if we want to publish this to someone who should only see it and do no changes to the data, is it possible please guide.
This could be a silly but bear me i am novice to excel 🙂
Thanks.
nice work.
inspired me a lot, working on few dashboard projects...
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dear mara
looks great .any reason why you have not used the bullet chart for the actual vs target chart.on the whole it is simple and elegant .jay.
Dear Chandoo,
The word Dashboard in the heading is misspelt.
Wow. Very Nice work Mara. Next week I am going to take the Course, I will try to post my work here.
Thank you so much for your helpful blog. Always appreciated your tips and tricks.
I am proud that you belongs to our Vizag City.
The above comment, I forgot mentioned about Chandoo, those two paras is about Chandoo. 😀
Thank you Mara!
Thx Mara, your work is great, congratulations…
Great Work Mara!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi Chandoo,
I had been following your blogs for tips and tricks on excel. I am working with Media agency and we collect the data. Now this data has several parameters based on several legends. For eg Class A - legend color red, classB - legend color green and so on. Class A has several characteristics and parameters and heading etc. Now everytime we gather data and make pivot then based on the data in the pilot tables - top 10 we need to insert those in charts manually and also need to change the colors of legends and also. We create nearly 300 slides every month sector wise and it takes nearly our 4-5 days in doing that. Do you have any sample dashboard which will be helpfull to us and we can create it in a day.
Thanks really amazing one,
it helped me in desgining OTACE report
Regards
Gowravan M
9980651792
Awesome Job done here .............
very good master piece but wont to know if you can design KPI's for a financial institution. Thank you
I need help to make performance for our company
we have about 10 products from 5 years old