How to Add Web Data to Your
Excel Dashboard Reports

Excel dashboard reports typically show internal data. But you can easily add public data that managers need.

Here, for example, is a modified version of Report 5 from IncSight DB. In the original version, the entire report showed internal data.

But in this version, the nine small charts show web data of interest to Acme’s managers: performance of top competitors, key economic data, and price trends for key resources.

Best of all, when new data is available on the web, the report can update when Excel recalculates.

Improve Business Performance
By Linking Excel to the Web

If our rotting economy causes most of our business problems these days, why is it that so few Excel reports and analyses include economic data?

These days, the road to business success seems to lead through a maze. Relevant economic data is like a photo taken from above the maze; it offers a view that helps managers find a path to safety. So it’s a mistake to deprive them of this information.

Here are Ten Ways to Improve Business Performance with Excel Formulas Linked to the Web.

Excel Swipe Files

This is an Excel figure. It's one of 16 that Charley has created (so far) in Excel.

These figures show that Excel users can create professional-looking displays for Excel reports, PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, and web pages.

See the high-quality displays you can produce with Excel!
 

Track Public Confidence Daily

When you’re planning for your company’s future, it would be great to have an accurate and current indication of how optimistic or pessimistic the public is about future economic performance.

Here's the only way we know to track public confidence both monthly and daily, for free.
 

How to Track Your Company's
Private Rate of Inflation

When the economy starts to improve, it's likely that inflation will sky-rocket. So it's important to keep an eye on inflation.

Keep in mind, however, that your company buys a unique mix of goods and services. So you have a unique inflation rate.

Here's how to use data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to track your Private Rate of Inflation
 

An Introduction to Excel's
Normal Distribution Functions

Excel provides several statistics functions for working with normal distributions. Also, New Excel (Excel 2007 and after) introduced a significant number of functions to replace earlier versions.

This article introduces Excel's functions that work with normal distributions, with examples from both versions of Excel.
 

How to Use Excel Formulas
To Create Traffic-Light Charts 

You can use worksheet formulas in Excel to turn ordinary charts into traffic-light charts like these. Of course, you'll have to ignore the experts who tell you that's impossible!

Excel's Best Lookup Function

Excel offers four lookup functions: LOOKUP, VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, and MATCH. The VLOOKUP function probably is the most widely used.

Unfortunately, the first three lookup functions offer needless limitations, and they can produce inaccurate results.

This series of articles explain the problems with the lookup functions and then describe Excel's best lookup function.
 

See Our Free Recorded Webinars

Charley Kyd recently started to give free webinars about his Excel dashboard products. Honestly, giving webinars is a new experience for him, so he won't win any Emmy Awards. But even so, the webinars offer some good information. You'll find them here:

• IncSight DB

• IncSight QnE

• Questions and Answers from both webinars
  

How to Use Excel Dashboards
To Encourage Urgent Change

Many companies find ways to thrive in recessions. These well-run companies find ways to adapt; they change quickly; and they grow.

But in too many companies, change crawls along at a snail's pace. Harvard's John P. Kotter explains how to encourage A Sense of Urgency for changing your organization's performance.

And Excel plays a critical role.

Analyze Seasonal Sales
Using Excel Formulas

Seasonal sales are difficult to forecast and analyze. It's hard to pick up on monthly trends. It's hard to forecast future sales. It's hard to plan spending a staffing. Seasonal sales are...messy.

Here's how to deseasonalize your sales data so you can gain greater insight about your sales.

Standard Reports or Dashboards?
Which Offers Greater Insight?

The purpose of any Excel report is to give its readers the most-useful information in the shortest-possible reading time.

Which type of report is best? Standard Excel reports certainly are the most widely used. But Excel dashboards have gained a lot of supporters. Compare two reports of the same data and decide for yourself.

Use SUMPRODUCT to Find
The Last Item in an Excel List

Suppose you have a Sequential List of items. And suppose you want to show the date of the first and last entry in the list. How would you do it?

This question isn't limited to dates, by the way. Your list could display numbers or text instead. How would you return information about the last occurrence of each item in the list?

Use SUMPRODUCT, of course.

Add Cash Flow to Balance Sheets

This simple change tells readers how each balance sheet item has changed, and how those changes have affected cash flow.

Your Cost Lag Loop

Some companies are in bad shape these days.

Whatever your company's condition, you'll survive the downturn more easily if you master the cost-lag loop.
 

Predict Business Bankruptcy

We show you how to calculate Z-Scores with Excel. 

Excel BI

Costs are rising. Sales are falling Credit is limited. Taxes are going up. We offer five reasons that Excel users will find solutions, if they exist.

Track Receivables With Excel

Do you monitor your receivables with the AR Collection Period, also called "Days Sales Outstanding in Receivables" (DSO)?

Learn why DSO fails and how Excel can give you more accurate results, results that also can improve your cash flow forecast.

Raise or Cut Prices?

Use this formula to learn whether your price change will help your gross profits or hurt them. It will help you to brainstorm your pricing strategy more easily.

The First Spreadsheet Dashboard

CyclePlot Charts

If you have seasonal sales, or other measures of performance, Cycle Plots can offer greater insight about your performance than traditional charting techniques.

Returning Items from a List

Database Reports

Weighing Your Debt Load

Growing Too Fast?

Pablum Dashboards

Is your company spending thousands of dollars for business dashboards that serve up your performance measures like pablum?

Stuff We Use

Benford's Law & Planning

Auditors sometimes use this fascinating statistical insight to uncover fraudulent accounting data. But it might reveal a useful strategy for investing in the stock market. And it might help you to improve the accuracy of your budgets and forecasts.

Array Alternative

Unfortunately, Excel's help topic ignores the real power of this function.

Array Formulas

We explain the most powerful and flexible approaches. The most powerful method is to use Excel arrays, which can give you summaries using any number of criteria.

Future Values

We show how to calculate both Future and  Present non-periodic values.