Comments on: An Excel Dashboard Widget http://www.gilliganondata.com/index.php/2009/11/16/an-excel-dashboard-widget/ Thoughts, musings, and, hopefully, not too many redundancies on the world of business data. If you missed the irony in the previous sentence, you may struggle with my writing style. Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:31:16 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Tim Wilson http://www.gilliganondata.com/index.php/2009/11/16/an-excel-dashboard-widget/comment-page-1/#comment-31956 Tim Wilson Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:50:02 +0000 http://www.gilliganondata.com/?p=592#comment-31956 @NJ I've gone back and forth on sparklines, but I've settled pretty heavily in the camp that they do much more good than harm. I was actually looking at a dashboard yesterday where four sparklines all showed a similar spike, and, since they were lined up, it was easy to tie them all to the same event. @Scott Thanks for the link! Indeed, Stephane's example does employ many, many of the same techniques. I missed that post, but there are some good nuggets there. As for the 2-series graph, it's actually just a separate in-cell formula for the second line. Right-click on the one-series graph and click "Select Data." Add a new series using the dialogue box. When you close out, you'll have a second line plotted. If you click on that line, you'll get the in-cell formula for it. In other words, if you have two lines on the graph, you have two in-cell formulas. Make sense? @NJ I’ve gone back and forth on sparklines, but I’ve settled pretty heavily in the camp that they do much more good than harm. I was actually looking at a dashboard yesterday where four sparklines all showed a similar spike, and, since they were lined up, it was easy to tie them all to the same event.

@Scott Thanks for the link! Indeed, Stephane’s example does employ many, many of the same techniques. I missed that post, but there are some good nuggets there. As for the 2-series graph, it’s actually just a separate in-cell formula for the second line. Right-click on the one-series graph and click “Select Data.” Add a new series using the dialogue box. When you close out, you’ll have a second line plotted. If you click on that line, you’ll get the in-cell formula for it. In other words, if you have two lines on the graph, you have two in-cell formulas. Make sense?

]]> By: Scott Zakrajsek http://www.gilliganondata.com/index.php/2009/11/16/an-excel-dashboard-widget/comment-page-1/#comment-31724 Scott Zakrajsek Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:29:54 +0000 http://www.gilliganondata.com/?p=592#comment-31724 Good stuff Tim, Im actually putting together a couple new dashboards for my new role, and I luckily have access to some of the new features in Excel 2007. I've been using the dashboard that Stephane Hamel put together for some inspiration (link below)...looks like you're using some similar tools. I do like the dual-line sparkline though, whats the in-cell function for a 2 series graph? http://blog.immeria.net/2008/08/even-more-web-analytics-dashboards-fun.html Good stuff Tim, Im actually putting together a couple new dashboards for my new role, and I luckily have access to some of the new features in Excel 2007. I’ve been using the dashboard that Stephane Hamel put together for some inspiration (link below)…looks like you’re using some similar tools. I do like the dual-line sparkline though, whats the in-cell function for a 2 series graph?

http://blog.immeria.net/2008/08/even-more-web-analytics-dashboards-fun.html

]]> By: NJ http://www.gilliganondata.com/index.php/2009/11/16/an-excel-dashboard-widget/comment-page-1/#comment-31673 NJ Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:01:38 +0000 http://www.gilliganondata.com/?p=592#comment-31673 Unfortunately sparklines are frequently incorrectly used and they become completely useless. Sometimes all they appear to be as spikes with no important information Unfortunately sparklines are frequently incorrectly used and they become completely useless. Sometimes all they appear to be as spikes with no important information

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