(Of course, if you own 3rd-party tools to enhance Excel's reporting capabilities -- like spark-chart software -- the techniques described in this book can help you to use those tools to create even better-looking reports in Excel.) Excel users in more than half the countries in the world are using Excel to create reports like these for their clients, co-workers, managers, or investors. You can do the same, using Excel on either a Windows or a Mac computer. Of course, if there's something you want to change about these reports, you can do so easily. This isn't complex software. It's only Excel. Two Dashboard Kits to Choose FromI offer two ways to create dashboard reports. If you need a dashboard report in a hurry, you can use the Plug-N-Play Dashboard Kit to generate your first report in a few hours. You merely choose among ten report worksheets, enter your data, choose one of 15 color schemes, recalculate your workbook, and then print. You also can learn how to modify the PNP reports, or create your own Excel dashboard reports from scratch. My Excel Dashboard E-Book Kit provides an e-book and sample files that teach you what you need.
The Plug-N-Play Dashboard KitMy Plug-N-Play Excel Dashboard Kit #1 is the quickest, easiest, and least-expensive way I know for average Excel users to generate magazine-quality Excel dashboard reports. This figure shows one of the ten versions that the kit offers. And each report can use 15 different color schemes. Plug-N-Play (PNP) versions are available for both New Excel (Excel 2007 and Mac Excel 2008) and for Classic Excel (prior versions). (Separate PNP versions are necessary because the two versions of Excel are not compatible when it comes to colors. It took me hours of work to convert one version to the other.) Each version of the PNP kit offers 10 reports and 15 color schemes. Each chart in each report shows 13 months of actual and targeted performance. If you don't have targets for some of your measures, just enter zero values for your target data. After your data is ready you should be able to create your first dashboard reports in a couple of hours. And you should be able to update your reports each month in about half an hour. Later, if you care to do so, you can reduce your update time to nearly nothing by using the techniques I describe in the Excel Dashboard E-Book Kit. To get started with the PNP reports, you need to take only three general steps: 1. Choose your report design. The kit includes a report workbook with ten different report designs, each in its own worksheet. You can see all ten of the designs here. Some designs have tables, some don't. Some have many charts, some have fewer charts. Most are in portrait mode, but two are in landscape mode.
2. Enter your titles and data. Each chart and table in the workbook is linked to a worksheet that acts as a data-entry form. First, enter your titles for each figure, which quickly makes your report look somewhat familiar. Then just enter (or copy and paste) your data into the worksheets. If you own the Excel Dashboard E-Book Kit, you can enter the formulas I discuss in chapters 6 - 8, formulas that link the dashboard workbook to your Excel database, or to other databases. 3. Choose your color schemes. The kit includes fifteen color schemes that you can see here. (In New Excel, the proper term is color "themes.") Use a simple Excel command to apply any color scheme to your report workbook. Experiment until you find the one you like best. If you don't like a particular color in one of the color schemes, just change it. Then print your first report. Monthly, you can follow a simple process to update your report quickly. Maintaining your report workbook is easy. There are no macros to break. Nothing is hidden or protected. It's just ordinary Excel. High Quality ReportingThese reports look like they came from the pages of a business magazine. Unless you tell your audience, they probably won't guess that you created the reports in Excel. I created these reports with one primary goal in mind: As Excel users, our purpose is to communicate business information clearly; our purpose is not to impress our audience with pretty pictures. Therefore, these reports avoid chart junk. This is Edward Tufte's term for the distracting eye candy that many commercial dashboard companies add to their expensive dashboard reports.
Inexpensive Reporting
Because of the value this kit offers, I originally planned to price it at about $100. But I decided to lower the price significantly. I want as many people as possible to be able to generate their own Excel dashboards, and $100 is beyond the reach of many budgets. Even so, $100 would have been a bargain:
However, instead of $100, I've set the price at $34.95. This is about $3.50 per report page, or less than $.25 per report if you factor in the 15 color schemes available for each report page. You can save even more if you buy the PNP kit bundled with the Excel Dashboard E-Book Kit.
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How to Create Figures that Use Both Charts and Worksheets. In dashboards, cell formatting, column widths, row heights, special formulas, and other spreadsheet elements all combine with charts to create the figures we see. Chapter 4 explains how to use these elements in your dashboard reports.
Excel's Camera Tool. This long-time Excel feature probably is the most-useful feature that most Excel users have never heard of. It gives you the ability to position live images of tables anywhere in your dashboard report. You can rotate the images and format them.
And because you even can set up a formula that determines which of several live images to display, the Camera tool allows you to include "traffic light" figures in your reports. Chapter 5 discusses the Camera tool in detail, and the sample files include working examples.
Linking Your Reports to Databases. You can set up your dashboard reports to return data from an Excel database, a PivotTable, or an Excel-friendly OLAP database. Chapter 6 discusses techniques for using Excel database and PivotTables, and it touches on techniques for using OLAPs. And Chapter 7 discusses Excel databases in detail.
How to Create an Excel Dashboard From Scratch. Chapter 8 begins with an empty spreadsheet and ends with a completed dashboard report, showing you each step along the way. The files that come with the kit include the completed dashboard, which is linked to an Excel database.
Dashboard Design Ideas. Business magazines are an excellent source for dashboard design ideas. To help you get the most from those magazines, Chapter 9 provides a wide variety of magazine figures, and shows Excel versions of those figures. The files include the actual spreadsheets that duplicate the magazines' charts and tables.
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You can save money when you buy the Plug-N-Play and E-Book kits together. When you do so, you also receive the three bonus dashboard reports shown here.
The top report is based on a design that Business Week used in the early 1990s to describe economic performance for the week. I changed it to show Performance for the Month.
The middle file is based on a design that Forbes magazine used in the 1990s, also to display economic performance. I turned it into an Executive Overview.
This dashboard is unusual because it uses only one chart. However, notice that it contains seven short tables, each of which summarizes key information that could serve as a reference for managers.
Let me reassure you that it doesn't matter what your numbers and text represent. You could use pages like this to report customer traffic, car traffic, or astronomical observations. Excel doesn't care. That is, these reports aren't limited to financial and marketing information.
The bottom file also is unusual. It displays 110 charts on one printed page.
This is the only workbook in either kit that contains a macro. First you format the top-left chart any way you want. Then you run the well-commented macro to create the remaining charts. Each chart gets its data from another data set in the workbook.
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I recently hired a very expensive web marketing firm to advise me. Their first recommendation was to increase all my prices by five to ten times.
The consultants pointed out that my customers get better insight about their organizations in much less time. Considering what many managers are paid, and what the value of good decisions are worth, this benefit is worth thousands of dollars they said. Also, my customers will be able to use Excel software they already own instead of buying and learning commercial BI software. This saves tens of thousands of dollars.
I've been charging way too little for these benefits, they told me.
Honestly, I'm resisting the idea, because I don't want to price the dashboards beyond the budgets of small companies and other under-funded organizations around the world. I can't guarantee how long these low prices will last. So you'll save money if you order now.
Can I get a receipt so my company will reimburse me for the book?
No problem. You'll receive one type of receipt within minutes of purchase. If it doesn't meet your needs, just email me. I'll send you another version with more complete information. And if that doesn't work let me know. One way or the other, I'll get you what you need.
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My company paid for your product. How can I get a copy for myself?
If your company purchased our products, we give you permission to make one copy of them for your personal use. The way the worldwide economy is these days, Excel users need all the Excel training the can get.
What kind of guarantee do you offer?
I offer an unconditional one-year money-back guarantee.
How soon will the kits arrive?
Within minutes after you place your order you'll receive an email message with download links. Just click the links to download your files immediately. Nothing will be shipped to you.
If my hard drive crashes, or I change jobs, can I get another copy?
No problem. This happens all the time. Just send me an email message and I'll send you another download link.
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Can I buy your book without giving you my credit card information?
Certainly! You can use PayPal, send us a check, or even a wire transfer. Just email me for further instructions. However, I will say that we've sold thousands of books by credit card and PayPal, and haven't had one security problem.
What's your email policy?
I'll never sell your email address to others. And I won't spam you
myself. Personally, I receive more than a thousand spams a day, and I don't
intend to add to this worldwide problem.
Key Points...1. I offer a one-year, unconditional money-back guarantee. 2. I send a receipt automatically. If your company needs a different format to reimburse you for your purchase, I'll work to get you what you need. 3. If your company purchased our products, we give you our permission to make one copy of them for your personal use. 4. I respect your email privacy.
5. If you lose your files,
I'll replace them at any time. |
If you use Windows or Vista, choose the version of Excel you use.
If you use Mac Excel 2008, choose the Excel 2007 version. If you use other versions of the Mac, choose the Excel 97-2003 version.
| Excel Dashboard Kit |
Excel 97-2003 |
Excel 2007 |
Both Versions |
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#1 10 Reports x 15 Color Schemes |
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| Quick-Start Bundle: --Plug-N-Play Kit #1 --E-Book Kit |
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To open the Zipped version, you'll need to install a program like WinZip. You can download a free copy here. |
We
accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, and PayPal.Here's some additional information about ordering:
If you have any problems downloading or un-zipping the files, contact me immediately. I'll make sure to get you what you need.
If you use Mac Excel 2008, choose the Excel 2007 version. If you use other versions of the Mac, choose the Excel 97-2003 version.
| Excel Dashboard Kit |
Excel 97-2003 |
Excel 2007 |
Both Versions |
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#1 10 Reports x 15 Color Schemes |
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| Excel E-Book Kit: Dashboard E-Book and 21 Files |
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Here are even more comments about these dashboard products:
"I find the book to be vastly better than I had anticipated
and easily
of higher caliber than a lot of the books on Excel that can be found at the local
bookstore chains."
Alan Johnson
Market Development Mgr
Major Oil Company Affiliate
"I am sending you the advance I have achieved so far. The report is incomplete because all the information for it is still being generated. But I wanted to share it with you...
"Your book is well written and very clear on every explanation."
Luis Iturriaga
Quality Systems Consultant
Ingeniería, Calidad y Competitividad
"You have no idea how much your publication "Dashboard Reporting with Excel" has helped me and my clients."
Leslie Jedrychowski
Consultant
KnowledgeVantage
I have been an Excel business user for many years and
have learnt more
from your publication than from any of the courses that I have attended."
James Campbell
Client Services Director
Paretian Asset Management
"I've seen bonehead, half-baked programs & reporting modules for which my Fortune 200 company has paid consultants and programmers hundreds of thousands of dollars. But they can't do half the great things that Charley's ideas deliver.
"They're fully customizable, fully adaptable to your business...the way you need your information.
"The key to great business decisions is the management and reporting of data. Charley provides the "great reporting" part.
"With fantastic and simple visuals to help the mind grasp the numeric trends, Charley's work turns my data into a gold mine.
"All the results without the $100K expense. Charley isn't just smart
...he's honest!"
Douglas Wesney
Pricing Manager
Fortune 200 Company
"It must be well over 2 years since I bought your ebook &
samples. At the time I was engineering manager for Vitafibres in the UK (I
think one of my comments is still on your website somewhere!). I still think
that dashboard reports are one of the neatest things I've ever done in
Excel. Initially, I was using a dashboard to report energy usage for monthly
management meetings. I followed on from that by using them to create PPM & TPM summary reports. In all these areas the use of
dashboards saved me hours
& hours of time every month.
"Since then, I've moved on from Vitafibres, but I'm still using dashboards! I
still don't use them to present financial data (I'm an engineer, after
all!), but I still keep finding other uses for them - currently I'm working
on an Excel application to carry out some detailed energy saving analysis.
This application has a lot of VBA code behind it, but I intend to use a
dashboard for the summary section of the customer report. I think that the
main thing that I've learned over the past couple of years is that
you don't
need to be a genius or an excel guru to create dashboards, but the
applications are almost limitless.
"I think that for me, one of the things that brought home the real usefulness
of dashboards was the first one I created. I presented my report at the
monthly management meeting as usual, but this one included my dashboard
report. No comment was made during the meeting, but afterwards the
divisional director of the fibres division came up to me and said something
along the lines of ' that report was excellent, it summarised all the energy
usage in a clear & readable manner, and now I can get a real feel for our
energy usage & expenditure.....but that report must have taken you hours to
produce'........well ok it took me 4 days to create the template, but I
didn't tell him that producing the report just took me just the time it
takes to click 'print'!
"All I can say in closing is keep up the good work!"
Mark Lees
Control systems engineer
If you use Windows or Vista, choose the version of Excel you use.
If you use Mac Excel 2008, choose the Excel 2007 version. If you use other versions of the Mac, choose the Excel 97-2003 version.
| Excel Dashboard Kit |
Excel 97-2003 |
Excel 2007 |
Both Versions |
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| Excel Plug-N-Play Kit
#1 10 Reports x 15 Color Schemes |
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| Excel E-Book Kit: Dashboard E-Book and 21 Files |
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| Quick-Start Bundle: --Plug-N-Play Kit #1 --E-Book Kit |
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Copyright © 2004 - 2012 by Charles W. Kyd, all rights reserved. Content, graphics, and HTML code are protected by US and International Copyright Laws, and may not be copied, reprinted, published, translated, hosted, or otherwise distributed by any means without explicit permission. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Earnings Policy.
Read below what Excel users say about "Dashboard Reporting With Excel". Charley "Earlier this year I purchased your excellent Excel dashboard package. "Thank you, kind sir!!! "I have directed several of my co-workers to your excellent site, and they have all made positive comments!" Ardith Ellis "Your dashboard kit is excellent." Francis Hayden Any Title I Feel Like Francis Hayden Ltd "I bought your e-book, "Dashboard Reporting With Excel" last year – a fantastic purchase!" Kevin Hodge "Thanks for revolutionizing the way I process and present month-end data and results. "Buying your e-book was the best thing I've done for myself in a long, long time. "I've forced our CIO to purchase it as well." "Your book is fantastic! Have learned more from that book than I have in 20 years of using spreadsheets." Albert J Rossman Senior Manager, Financial Integration Abbott Laboratories "What a great book! "Now I can apply my newfound charting skills to
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