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Quicker and Easier Than Ever Before!

Windows or Mac, Excel 2007 through 2013

Users of Excel 2007 & Beyond...
Here’s How to WOW! Your Boss and Save Hours of Work Each Month

A long-forgotten report from the 'Harvard Business Review' – supported by cutting-edge research and 30 years of
spreadsheet development – offers the fastest and easiest way to give your managers the business insight they need.

by Charley Kyd
Microsoft Excel MVP

This example of a 3x5 report from IncSight QnE is similar to the report that George Blake shared with HBR readers more than 30 years ago. The dashboard uses QnE2's default color theme.

Be sure to add your name to your dashboard. This lets your readers know whom to call with questions and compliments.

This example of a 2x4 report is from IncSight QnE, Version 2. It uses the alternate color theme that comes with QnE2.

(This version is for Excel 2007 and after. If you use Excel 2003 or before, please visit IncSight QnE, Version 1.)

These are tough times for many Excel users, and their managers. What about you?

• Do your managers get reports and analyses they seldom have time to study?
   
• Are you working long hours on Excel reporting?
   
• Or, if you're looking for new opportunities, are you looking for a way to PROVE your professional and Excel skills to potential employers?

Excel users all over the world are facing similar problems today. But problems like these aren’t new. I first experienced them in the 1980s.

Spreadsheets were new back then. But I worked long hours with them to report and analyze my company’s performance. First using VisiCalc, and then Lotus 1‑2‑3, I created hundreds of reports and analyses.

Even with those primitive tools, I gave my managers some great reports -- many tall stacks of them. My managers hated to get those reports, for a very good reason...

To get much value from my reports the managers needed to study them carefully, like homework. So, like homework, my managers often set those pages aside until later. And then I would add another set of reports to the stack.

We were trapped. My managers needed the information desperately, but they had no time to study it.

Then I noticed a short article in an old copy of the Harvard Business Review, an article that showed me how to escape that trap. It completely changed my ideas about management reporting.

Here’s how it began:

This guy had the same problem my managers had, but solved it with just one sheet paper. What a concept!

His example report was amazing. In just a few seconds, a page like the examples above helped him and other managers to get a true picture of performance. My mountain of paper never could have provided that insight, even if managers had studied the reports for hours.

Today, we would call Blake’s report a dashboard report.

How Science Supports Chart-Rich Dashboard Reports

In recent years, scientists have learned a lot about the way humans absorb visual information. Their findings support my enthusiasm for using small, simple charts for management reporting.

Specifically, the psychologists have explained why people can read dashboard charts quickly, find their meaning automatically, and remember many charts easily:
 

1. People Can Read Small Charts More Quickly Than Numbers

Research shows that as you read this sentence, your eye is making between two and five snapshots -- called saccades -- per second. At a typical reading distance, each saccade has a diameter about the size of the word "snapshot".

Each time you read a number in a report, your eye takes at least one snapshot. Reading many numbers requires many snapshots. Searching for trends and other patterns in all those numbers requires not only mental gymnastics, but many more snapshots.

Searching for patterns in numeric data is hard work!

In contrast, your managers and other readers can see the meaning of small, simple charts with one saccade, in less than a second. Readers can see trends, seasonalities, variances, correlations, and other patterns at a glance.

Searching for patterns in charted data is a breeze!
 

2. People Can Find Meaning In Charts Automatically

When humans see images, we automatically find connections with information in our long-term memory. Scientists call this “gist”.

When we look at an image, including charts, gist memory processes the information immediately and determines how it fits into our existing storehouse of knowledge. Before we even have time to think about it, our brain looks for patterns in the visual data.

Research shows that our brains can find the gist of an image as quickly as one-tenth of a second!

So when we use charts, we automatically give our brains a quick and easy way to find meaning in our data.
 

3. People Can Remember a Massive Amount of Chart Content

“Visual long-term memory has a massive storage capacity for object details.”

This intriguing statement is also the title of an article published in the September, 2008, edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We found that observers could successfully remember details about thousands of images after only a single viewing,” the four authors from MIT wrote. “The present results demonstrate visual memory is a massive store that is not exhausted by a set of 2,500 detailed representations of objects.”

There are at least two practical reasons this discovery is important for management reporting.

First, it’s difficult for humans to remember numbers long enough to compare one set of them to others. But it’s easy for us to remember and compare one chart to others.

Therefore, simple, chart-rich reports give managers the ability to discover patterns of performance among other charts, patterns that lead to business insight.

Second, the easier it is for managers to remember the contents of their reports, the more valuable the reports become. This research shows that by converting numeric data to charts, we make it MUCH easier for managers to remember performance results.

When I first saw Blake’s dashboard, I didn’t know that scientists eventually would support my enthusiasm for his use of small, simple charts. I just knew that I really wanted to give my managers a similar report!
 

IncSight QnE's "7x4" landscape report makes 728 data points easy to read. (728=28 charts x 13 months x 2 series)

Six Major Changes to Version 2

I've made six major changes to Version 2 of my dashboard templates, changes that make them even easier to set up and use:

1. Identical Plumbing: Both the data worksheets and the ones that support each figure now use the same design for IncSight DB and IncSight QnE. Therefore, because there's now only one design for the data "plumbing" the templates are easier to learn. And because they both use the same data worksheets, you now can use the templates interchangeably.

2. Simplified Design: The worksheets that support the figures have been simplified. There are fewer formulas, and they're easier to use.

3. More Powerful: In QnE, for example, you now can calculate ratios and perform other calculations for charting. (This is a feature that DB has always had.) And in both products, you now can display any date period that Excel can support.

The top chart uses QnE's default chart type. But the topic "How to Change Chart Types in Your Dashboards" in the documentation explains how to set up other chart types in IncSight QnE and IncSight DB.

5. Complete Documentation. The templates now come with a 30-page manual that begins with a two-page Quick Start section. Other sections in the manual include:

• Why You Shouldn’t Name Worksheets “R” or “C”
• How to Change Chart Types in Your Dashboards
• How to Move Data Worksheets To and From Reports
• How to Add or Delete Time Periods in Your Report
• And more.

6. Standardized Color Themes.  The IncSight templates, Version 1, used theme colors that were designed specifically for IncSight DB and QnE. This limited their ability to be used other types of dashboards or for other Excel reports, PowerPoint slides, Word documents, and so on.

However, I've "standardized" the colors for Version 2 so they can be used in any Office product that uses color themes, including Excel dashboards, of course. 

Three Big Reasons You Should Try IncSight^® QnE Today

IncSight QnE is my bundle of Excel dashboard reporting templates linked to an Excel database workbook. With IncSight QnE you can…

1. Give your managers more business insight, more quickly and easily, so your organization will be more successful.
    
2. Set up new reports in less than an hour and update them in seconds, so you’ll reduce your Excel reporting time and effort.
    
3. WOW! your managers and clients, so you can communicate your professional knowledge and skills more effectively.

IncSight QnE, Version 2, contains a total of 38 workbooks. These include…

• 1 workbook with a data worksheet for actual data, with one file each for weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual data.
   
• 1 workbook with a data worksheet for target data. (If you don’t have targets for some data series, it’s not a problem. Just erase the sample data.)
   

  Your Resume and Excel Dashboards If you give potential employers a copy of an Excel dashboard, you could achieve at least three objectives: 1. You could get their attention, and help them to remember you. 2. You could demonstrate your Excel skills in ways that few other Excel users could. 3. You could give them a list of measures of interest to their organizations, measures that you’re prepared to discuss in detail. The final item probably is key. Your sample dashboard should contain performance measures, economic indicators, or other public data that would interest a potential employer in your industry. By choosing the measures carefully, you can discuss how your professional experience and capabilities are closely matched with the employer's needs. We know of Excel users in several industries who use a similar approach in meetings with prospective clients.

• 18 workbooks with landscape reports, with layouts from 2x2 (two charts wide by two charts high), to 2x3, 2x4, 3x2, and so on, through 7x4 charts per page. (No matter how few or how many charts you need, you’ll probably find a workbook that can display them.)
   
• 16 workbooks with portrait reports, with layouts from 2x2 through 5x5 charts per page. (Have you ever created reports linked to a data worksheet? A similar technique works very well for tabular reports.)
  
• 2 workbooks with the color themes shown at the top of this page.

Excel users all over the world are using my dashboard products...

• What attracted Excel users to my products were the pages of chart-rich dashboard reports that delighted their managers.
  
  
• What made Excel users loyal to my products was the easy way they could maintain those reports.

Simple formulas are the magic ingredient. They turn a mere page of charts into a powerful dashboard system.

The formulas pull the data you specify from the Excel database. They scale the data. They add units of measure. They convert date serial numbers into the date labels you specify. They synchronize target and actual data.

Those simple formulas are the hidden power of my Excel dashboard reports.

			IncSight® QnE Set up your first Excel dashboard report in less than an hour. Add any number of reports. You can update your reports in seconds because they're linked to an Excel database. Choose from 34 Excel templates, plus 2 color schemes. These dashboards use only Excel workbooks. Nothing is hidden or protected. There are no macros to run. And there's nothing to install. Order now to take advantage of the introductory price!   IncSight QnE, Version 2 for New Excel, Introductory Price:  —PC Excel 2007 and after: —Mac Excel 2008 and after: $79.00 $49 USD (If you use Excel 2003, see IncSight QnE, Version 1) Availability: Guarantee: Licensing: Instant download. One-year, unconditional. One work copy plus one personal copy.
			FREE! Included with today's order... 1. IncSight Colors, Set 1b. Get 30 custom Office color themes designed for Excel dashboards. A $29 value. 2. Charley's Swipe Files. Get chart figures 1-4 -- with instructions -- that begin the Charley's Swipe Files subscription. This is a $41.80 value if you were to order the charts individually, or $25.90 value if you were to subscribe to Charley's Swipe Files.