Create Excel Dashboards

"Excel dashboards" is a fairly new term, but the idea of creating concise and professional reports is definitely not new. Excel can be a great tool for summarizing data in charts and tables, and creating interactive financial models. However, creating a good Excel dashboard is something that few people are able to do without some training.

The worth of data depends upon the ability to access it, analyze it, interpret it, and communicate it. When you can make vital information accessible to the people who need it to make decisions, in a way that is easily and correctly communicated, you become a valuable asset.

A new e-book, "Dashboard Reporting With Excel," by Charley Kid of ExcelUser.com has made it much easier to create dashboards in Excel. The images below come from ExcelUser.com, the home of the "Excel Dashboard Kit". This kit includes the 150 page e-book, the Excel workbooks used as examples in the book, and a bunch of other stuff.

Have you noticed that you can pick out a default Excel chart from a mile away!? I am a firm believer that you shouldn't use fancy graphics to make bad data look impressive, but when it comes to presentations and other high-level reports, nobody likes ugly graphics!

The examples at ExcelUser.com show that it is possible to make nice concise summary reports using Excel. For more information, check out the "Excel Dashboard Kit"