All articles with 'microsoft' Tag

This is a Guest Post by Robert on Visualization Techniques for KPI Dashboards using Excel. This 6 Part Tutorial on Management Dashboards Teaches YOU: Creating a Scrollable List View in Dashboard Add Ability to Sort on Any KPI to the Dashboard Highlight KPIs Based on Percentile Add Microcharts to KPI Dashboards Compare 2 KPIs in […]

In Petal Charts – an Alternative to Radar Charts I have suggested using a radar chart tweak to replace the radar charts. Both PTSBlog and Information Ocean have posted their critical reviews of these petal charts. So as a penance for proposing petals, I am going to provide a tutorial on creating a comparison table […]

Ever since we moved to Seattle we have been watching TV game show – Deal or No Deal (for lack of better things to do in the hotel) The game provides an interesting look at human nature and risk taking abilities. People who wouldn’t risk their retirement savings or jobs would go to these game […]

Here is a quick excel number formatting tip. If you ever want to format numbers in such a way that it shows decimal values only if the number is less than 1 you can use conditional custom cell formatting (do not confuse with conditional formatting). Here is an example: In such cases you can use […]

After seeing Andrew’s simple excel based check-list I got this idea of preparing a simple To-Do list application using excel. Since most of us use Excel on day to day basis, why not use it as a productivity application as well by keeping track of all the things we must do (TO DO List). When […]

In our Utopian imaginations all the data would have been standardized and shareable across systems and people. But alas, the reality is totally different. We seldom get data in the format / way we desire it to be. In other words, the ingredients are all there, but for us to prepare the dinner, you must […]

Time for sharing another round of excel related articles around the web. List of all data visualization and analysis excel add-ins, The list includes some of the really useful add-ins. Handy bookmark if you work with data visualization alot and need to know where to find good stuff to add to your excel capabilities. Designing […]

Spelling mistakes are a thing of day to day carporate life. Most of the data in spreadsheets is entered by people and hence prone to having spelling mistakes or alternate spellings. For eg. a person named John could have been spelled as Jon. And when John calls you back to confirm his reservation and you […]

In shuffling a list of items in excel I have described the technique of using random numbers generated by RAND() to sort a list of items. The technique had one disadvantage though, every time you need to reshuffle the list you have to press F9 to recalculate the rand() and then go to menu > […]

The new Microsoft “Hi, I am PC” ads are supercool. Apple has been making fun of PC (and PC users) for while with the “I am PC, I am Mac” ads and the response from MS advertising team is nothing short of brilliant. With these simple & funny ads, they have changed the focus from […]

There are few charts in excel that are as revolting as a radar chart. The purpose of a radar chart is to compare m options across n parameters so that audience can be convinced that option A is better than say option B. But, I am yet to come across a radar chart that tells […]

One of our readers Jennifer mailed me with this excel charting problem she is having. I thought why not ask other readers for their advice on this. So here it goes: The Charting Challenge – Visualizing Changes in Market Share Here is an excerpt from her email: The gist of my problem is how to […]

In India salary is usually paid on the last working day of a month – the payday. It is slightly different in countries where payrolls are processed every 2 weeks. For eg. in US most companies pay salary on every 2nd Friday / Thursday. We can calculate the paydays / payroll periods in excel with […]

We have a major power outage in Ohio due to a wind storm on Sunday. AEP, Our electric provider says that power would be restored to my area by this Friday midnight, that is almost 6 days without power. I will not be able to blog regularly during this period. So here is a list […]

This is 4th part of Creating Management Dashboards in Microsoft Excel 6 post series by Robert. This 6 Part Tutorial on Management Dashboards Teaches YOU: Creating a Scrollable List View in Dashboard Add Ability to Sort on Any KPI to the Dashboard Highlight KPIs Based on Percentile Add Microcharts to KPI Dashboards Compare 2 KPIs […]