Let’s Do this Backwards
Excel dynamic charting is a great way to quickly answer questions without having to go through rows and rows of data. I’ve decided to start backwards this time by providing you guys with the final product/dashboard before giving you the tutorial on how to build it. This is a great way to learn. I haven’t hidden any of the formulas so feel free to play around with this to see if you can figure out what’s going on behind the scenes.
I know that companies often wonder which of their product lines are performing better than others and this is a great way to do it. This dashboard allows you to compare any two product categories and it also allows you to see at what point during the year each product line/category is the most successful. I’ve decided to use total units sold in this case but in a real world example you’ll get a much better comparison using total revenue by product category.
Here’s a couple of ideas of what the executives might be looking for:
- What are the highest performing months for the products being compared?
- What’s the difference between the total units sold for each month for the product lines being compared?
- Display a table off to the side showing the highest selling product category with the corresponding month and value/units sold.
- Display a table off to the side showing the lowest selling product category with the corresponding month and value/units sold.
What other things would you like to see available in a dashboard like this? Let me know in the comments what you like the most or least about this chart.
In the up and coming weeks I’ll be posting the how to tutorial on how to build this dashboard. Until next time!
Download the Free Dashboard!
DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONSThe Excel file is indeed free. When you click the 'GET IT FREE' button be sure to enter in $0 for the value and this will remove the request for your credit card information. All you'll need is your email address!