• Sort your chart data in a meaningful order.
• Show only relevant information, not everything – because un-necessary information clutters the chart.

Today we will learn a dynamic charting technique that will mix these two ideas in a useful way. I call this a Top X chart.

Note: This article uses the concepts from How to make chart data ranges dynamic. I suggest reading that article first if you haven’t.

What in the name of 3d square pie is a TopX chart?

A top-x chart is an interactive (or dynamic) chart which automatically sorts the data from top to bottom and displays only TOP ‘X’ items and showing the remaining balance as the last item. Users can adjust the value of ‘X’ and chart will be re-drawn to show more (or less) values.

See this example implementation:

How to make a Top X chart using Excel – 5 Step Tutorial

1. Have your data ready

It should be in 2 columns – first column – the attribute (for eg. customer name) and second column – the value. Lets assume the data is in range A1:B10.

2. Add 3 dummy columns

We need to add 3 dummy columns to this list. (you can do away with dummy columns if the list is sorted).

1. First dummy column – to make the values unique. We just take the value in column B and make it unique in Column C by adding a small incremental fraction to it. Something like =B1+10^-6*ROWS($B$1:B1) will do. [Help on ROWS formula]
2. Second dummy column – to get first X sorted customer names.
3. Third dummy column – to get first X sorted sales values. We use LARGE excel formula [14 more powerful excel formulas] for both these columns.
   It is your home work to figure out how to write these formulas.

3. Find a cell where user can input the X

Lets call it $F$2.

4. Update the dummy column formulas

We need to update the formulas in dummy columns 2 & 3 so that we can show “all remaining customers” as well.
To Do this, you can add an IF formula that would check if the number of the customer is >X and then just show “All remaining” with the sum of remaining values. Remember, your IF formula should be smart enough to show empty values if the row number is >X+1.

At this point, the data table should look something like this for X=5

5. Finally, select Dummy column 2 and 3, make a chart

We will re-visit our tutorial on how to make charts with dynamic ranges of data. We use the same concepts to make this interactive top x chart.

So make a named range pointing to the result of an OFFSET formula. If this sounds like turkish, I suggest getting a cup of coffee and reading the charts with dynamic ranges post. Now.

Once you have created the named range, just insert a new chart and use the named ranges as data sources. Format the chart a bit if needed and you should have a Sparkling Top X Chart, ready to fly.

Why Top X charts are cool?

• Top X charts let users play with them and find what they want. They are better than static versions.
• The show the necessary while hiding the rest.
• They show data in sorted order, which is awesome.
• You can easily build up on this concept to make them more presentable / fun. For eg. you can add a slider control and point it to cell F2.

Go ahead and download the Top X chart Template

Click here to download the topx chart template [Click here for Excel 2007 version, it is even more awesome] Play with it to learn how the formulas are working.

This is a slightly complicated chart, so beginners, you may want to jump around PHD and to get a grip on the key concepts.

What are your views on Top X Chart?

Please share your ideas and implementations suggestions using comments. I *love* to hear what you think about this.

Other Charts you can try:

Check out some of the excel dynamic charts to get inspired.

Here is a challenge many people face. How to make a chart visualizing sales data with several dimensions like product, brand, region, sales person name, year (or month or quarter) and one or two values like sales, # of units sold, profits, # of new customers.

In visualization challenge #2, all you have to do is a make one chart (dashboards are ok too) to visualize this sales data effectively.

The Data

Download the CSV file with data [mirror]. It has 28 columns – Region,Product,Customer Type,Sales Person Name and 24 Months starting Jan 08.

The Objective

You have to make one chart (or dashboards) using this data that would help a senior manager understand how the sales people have done in the 24 months. The chart can be dynamic / interactive / macro based. You can use any software (not just excel) to make this chart.

The Booty

The winner gets an … wait for it … iPod Touch 8GB sponsored by good folks at Zoho Reports. That is right. We are going all out to make sure you submit the best.

2 more contestants will get a complimentary copy of project management bundle for excel.

The Fineprint, read all of these before you start your engines:

• You can submit any number of entries.
• You are free to change the actual numbers in the data. I just used RANDBETWEEN () to get these values. You can replace them with some other numbers if you want.
• The contest is open from now to 28-Nov-2009.
• Winner will be selected using a poll by our readers.
• There is a second and third prize too. 2 contestants will get one copy of Project Management Templates Set.
• You can use any software, but you must submit the source files (or alteast stuff close to that) so that our readers can download and play with the files.
• International contestants – If Amazon or Apple don’t ship the iPod to your country, we are still cool. You can choose to have some other product that can be bought online and delivered to you, because we are awesome like that.

How to submit entries?

• Download the data and make the chart(s).
• Upload the chart source files, any images to a free online storage service like skydrive.
• Drop a comment here with links to your files.
• Alternatively e-mail the files to me (I am e-mail rustic. So expect few days delay before I upload them somewhere) at chandoo.d @ gmail.com
• Please note: You agree that the files you submit can be freely distributed to readers on PHD for learning purposes.

Contest Sponsored by Zoho Reports

This contest is sponsored by awesome folks at Zoho Reports, Online Reporting and Business Intelligence Service

Please spread the message:

Take a minute and e-mail a friend or tweet about this contest or share this on facebook. The more people participating in this, the better it is for us. We can learn several interesting implementations.

Some inspiration:

• NY Times visualization of Jobless rate by Age, Race, Education Level and Sex
• Jon Pletier’s tutorial of highlighting one chart series using list boxes
• Budget vs. Actual charts – 14 charting ideas for showing sales performance

At the outset SUMPRODUCT formula may not seem like all that useful. But once you understand how excel works with  lists (or arrays) of data, the SUMPRODUCT’s relevance becomes crystal clear.

SUMPRODUCT formula – syntax and usage

The sum-product formula syntax is very simple. It takes 1 or more arrays of numbers and gets the sum of products of corresponding numbers.

The syntax is =SUMPRODUCT (list 1, list 2 ...)

So, for ex: if you have data like {2,3,4} in one list and {5,10,20} in another list, and if you apply SUMPRODUCT, you will get 120 (because 2*5 + 3*10 + 4*20 is 120).

At this point it might seem like an almost useless function. But all that will change in the next 2 minutes, keep reading.

SUMPRODUCT and Arrays

Lets say you have a list of sales data with columns Name, Region, Product and Sales. Now, you want to know how many units the sales person named “Luke” sold. This is simple, you will write a SUMIF formula [examples] and use the Name column as “criteria range” and Sales column as “sum range”.

But, wait a second, you want to find how many units sales person “Luke” sold in the region “west”.

Hmm…. we have 2 options,

• Use an array formula
• Use a pivot table [what is a pivot table?]

Actually, there is a hidden third option, use SUMPRODUCT.

That is right, my friend, we can use SUMPRODUCT to do just this (and much more).

Using SUMPRODUCT as an array formula

Assuming, the data is in range A1:D10, with Name in column A, Region in B, Product in C and Sales in D, the SUMPRODUCT formula is,

=SUMPRODUCT(--(A1:A10="Luke Skywalker"),--(B1:B10="West"),D1:D10)

Okay, lets take a minute and try to understand WTF (what the formula) is doing.

• The portion --(A1:A10="Luke Skywalker")is looking for Luke Skywalker across planetary systems in all universes It is going to give us a bunch of ONEs and ZEROs, one if the cell has Luke, Zero if the cell has something else.
• The portion --(B1:B10="West")is doing the same, but gets 1s when the value is “West”.
• The portion D1:D10 is just returning all the sales figures.
• When you put everything together and multiply, it just works. Why? That is your home work to figure out.

Share your SUMPRODUCT formula Tips & Tricks

SUMPRODUCT formula can do much more once you understand how it works. This post is meant to open the door for you. Go ahead and explore the possibilities, then come back and share your tips with us.

Recommended Reading

I suggest reading the excel array formula examples, sumif with multiple conditions and other excel formula tutorials.

This post is part of our spreadcheats series

The key changes are,

• On archive pages (that is category, tag and monthly pages) you can see 15 posts per page in a grid fashion. The post title, an image (if any) along with number of comments on that post are shown. This should be an easier way to deep dive in to the site and find interesting stuff to learn. Here are few example pages – quick tips page, Most popular articles on PHD or Charting Principles.
• On Home page, you now see the featured post prominently in a box. It takes less space and stands out from rest.
• The search bar on top is now very obvious. In case you are on PHD and want to find something, just enter the search keywords and let the google find right articles for you.
• The side bar navigation is awesomeified. We now have 3 boxes, one for “excel beginners”, one for “advanced excel” and one for “archives and resources” with less number of links to important landing pages on the site.
• We have an all new books store – that is right fellas, I have created a simple amazon store where you can purchase some of the excel / charting / powerpoint books recommended by me. Check out the store here.

Go take a look at the new site here. Deep dive in to one or two pages.

Please do me a favor

Please take a minute and drop me a comment telling what you think about,

• Site navigation
• Ability to find right information
• How you felt as a new visitor to the site – what turned you on / off?
• How we can make this place better, warmer, fuzzier and awesomer?

Thank you in advance.

Here is a list of really interesting excel articles to start your week. Go check!

Use Microsoft Chart Adviser to make Better Charts

The howtogeek reviews the chart adviser tool from MS office labs and shows us how to make better charts using this. The chart adviser looks at your data and recommends charts best fit for visualizing it. It takes the guess work out of the chart making process and can be useful (especially if you are a newbie). The tool is similar to Bonavista Chart tamer, but not so much awesome. You can download the chart adviser from office labs here.

Make table of contents with just dragging

Debra teaches us the easiest way to make table of contents in a large excel sheet. Just use the mouse. Curious? Head over to contextures to learn the trick.

Understand the PowerPivot for Excel 2010

Straight from the MS Excel Team Blog, this article explains the power pivot features of Excel 2010. (For the curious, the powerpivot was Project Gemini) Using power pivot it is easy to analyze complex data (with probably millions of rows) and prepare dashboards for the boss.

Learn Excel OFFSET Function Interactively

The Financial Modeler gives us an interactive excel workbook using which you can learn the excel offset formula. I recommend checking this out if you have doubts about offset formula.

Cascade Chart Utlity for Excel

John Peltier releases yet another awesome charting utility – an Excel add-in to make cascade charts. Cascade charts are great way to show one series vertically (e.g., revenue) against a cumulative series horizontally (e.g., market segment size). As usual, PHD proudly recommends this tool.
PS: I am using affiliate code to recommend this awesome product.

That is all folks. Stay tuned for another beautiful week of excel and charting (well, it is not so beautiful in Copenhagen, unless you call gray skies and crappy weather beautiful, but I hope it is blue skies where you live).

I’m having a lot of fun with your gauge template
To make it more industrial-like, I’ve added:
1. Brushed metal background picture
2. Gradient fill format to the pie shares
3. A gradient fill. semi-transparent square (to make glass effect)
4. Sqrew-head pics

The original gauge chart template behind Egil’s industrious effort caused enough debate among our community.

I think gauges are a poor way to visualize data, but I don’t completely shoot them down either. Gauges connect well with certain type of audience / situations – like kids, informal communications, conveying just one point etc. But it would be disastrous to have a gauge chart on your weekly dashboard to the CFO, no matter how industrial-like it is.

Download Egil’s version of the Gauge

Click here to download the fancy gauge chart template. Thanks Egil for your idea. I think it is pimptastic.

Anyways, here is a fun challenge:

Download the gauge, and pimp it in your style. Take a screenshot, upload it somewhere and link it here. I want to see how you would pimp it.

And if you are furious to see a gauge chart on this blog, remember, and I am not making this up either, today is Friday. Have fun folks.

PS: yes, I am HUGE fan of Dave Barry, and no, I am not making this up.

Added later: Just to be clear, I think Egil’s implementation is pretty cool and shows what is possible with excel.

What is in this book?

The Excel lookup toolbox has 120 pages of very useful information on writing lookup formulas (VLOOKUP, INDEX, MATCH) and associated excel formulas like SUMPRODUCT, COUNTIF, SUMIF, Array Formulas etc.

The book starts with a detailed overview of the formulas vlookup, index, match, countif, countifs, sumif, sumifs, sumproduct, averageif, averageifs and array formulas.

Then the book moves to describe 8 familiar lookup scenarios,

1. Looking up a number/date/text equal to
2. Looking up text that begins with/ ends with / contains
3. Looking up case-sensitive text
4. Looking up two index columns and other advanced lookup formulas
5. Looking up the max/min number, newest/oldest date etc.
6. Looking up the exact or lower approximate text/number/date
7. Looking up the exact or lower/greater approximate text/number/date
8. Looking up the amount of a category

For each of these lookup scenarios, John explains how to write lookup formulas, gives a handful of practical examples (with illustrations) and highlights common mistakes and errors.

Read a sample page of the book.

Benefits of using Excel lookup toolbox

Anyone reading this blog for more than a week would appreciate the important role excel formulas play in building better excel worksheets / models / reports / dashboards. I think there are several benefits of really learning excel lookup formulas.

In my opinion, this book will help you,

• become better at understanding the structure of your data(base)
• write smarter and accurate lookup formulas, thus saving time and effort
• not rush to Google or ask in forums on how to fetch the “x” from “y”
• know exactly why an error is occurring when you see a #N/A or something equally annoying.
• learn how to fix errors in lookup formulas and better still, know how to avoid such errors

What you get when you buy the toolbox?

When you purchase the Excel lookup toolbox you get,

• A 120 page e-book on Excel Lookup Formulas (PDF)
• 45 Excel files with detailed examples of lookup formulas
• A fact-sheet detailing various errors that occur when writing lookup formulas and the remedies

How Much is the Excel Lookup Toolbox?

For a limited time John is selling the toolbox for $19.85. Believe me when I say this toolbox is a steal.

Go here to purchase.

My Review & Opinion

John uses his prior experience in system development to give us several real world scenarios and how the lookup formulas can be written for these. I really liked the way the John presented the content. See the sample page above.

I recommend the excel lookup toolbox for anyone working on excel to manage and report data. The book can teach you some really awesome tricks and help you become better at writing lookup formulas. That, my dear reader is the easiest way to impress everyone at work and get things done.

Any questions?

Do you have any questions about this product? Please drop a comment, John has agreed to reply to your queries directly here. If you bought the product, please feel free share your review here because it will help others.

Disclosure

John is a friend of mine. I have reviewed this ebook even before release (you can read my testimonial in the book as well). I get small commission when you buy the excel lookup toolbox. But I am 100% sure you get much more value out of the toolbox than what John or I make from the sale. Go ahead and get the excel lookup toolbox today.

Ok, lets just back up for a minute and understand what “intelligence dashboard” is before moving on. In the web analytics world, intelligence means “is there something interesting happening on the site?”. This could be information like “300% more visitors from city of New York on 3rd November” or “Pages on Conditional Formatting received 50% less traffic than usual from search engines on Monday”.

So, I clicked on the intelligence alert dashboard. And what a dashboard it is, very well thought out and designed. There are at least 10 dashboard best practices you can pick up from this and use in your day to day work. See it:

I have highlighted the important takeaways for us chart makers and story tellers.

1. Use date windows so that end-users can change the date to see different report. This can be done in various ways. For eg. in our KPI Dashboards using Excel posts, we have used scroll-bars. If you have pivot reports, just add the date to “header” section. Otherwise, you can also use data filters to make your charts dynamic.
2. Band / highlight selected dates to so that users know what they are looking. This can be done using simple formulas and a combo-box control. Here is an example of conditionally banding charts in excel.
3. Use effective colors - Google uses simple but very effective colors. [Get 73 beautiful excel chart templates and make better charts]
4. Use basic charts – Often we fancy ourselves to use some super-complicated-chart. Heck, Jon reviewed (more like lambasted) a 3d Square Pie Chart just yesterday. See how Google has used simple line and column charts to make the point. It is the same lesson every time folks - keep it simple.
5. Use dynamic charts - We, humans like to play. That is the single most important reason to have dynamic charts in dashboards. See how google has used the dynamic charts in this dashboard (scroll down and see the video to understand how this dashboard works). Making Dynamic Charts in Excel – Comprehensive tutorials & examples.
6. Be smart with data labels: While data labels can help understand the charts, often dashboards have too many charts and thus data labels make it look cluttered. A simple solution is to use data labels conditionally. Ajay at has another good example at databison on interactive data labels.
7. Let your users customize the dashboard: This means ability to switch rows to columns, choosing how much information to see etc.
8. Highlight important information: use different font (or font size), have special area on the dashboard to display key metrics etc.
9. Show metrics by dimension: this is more common way to look at business intelligence reports. It might be a bit too much to do this kind of reporting from excel, but pivot tables can certain help you get there.
10. A good dashboard tells what is important and what is not: While we can argue that dashboards should show “only” the important, a good dashboard lets user customize the contents and clearly tells what is not important if it ever shows up.

There is so much more beauty and design behind this google dashboard than what I can capture in a simple post. So I have recorded a small video (4 mins). Please take a look at it if you are keen to learn few more lessons on better dashboard design.

Watch it on Youtube if you are not able to see it here.

What do you think about the Google analytics intelligence dashboard?

Share your comments with us, what do you like about this dashboard? Do you find any mistakes in it? How would you use this lessons in your work?

Read more examples, tutorials and case studies on information dashboards

We all have atleast one story of how that one time the boss / co-worker / classmate / cat ruined the carefully crafted excel spreadsheet by mucking up the formulas or disturbing the formatting. There are 3 very easy solutions to prevent this problem,

1. Write an unleash_a_pack_of_wild_cats_when_someone_messes_with_the_file () macro: It is not an elegant solution, and cats are not very consistent, but it can work.
2. Move to marketing department, you dont need to send excel files any more, just ppts.
3. Or, read this post and learn 10 awesome tips on how to boss proof your excel files.

So here is the list of 10 tips to make better excel spreadsheets. I suggest using all these tips for a perfect boss proof workbook.

Restrict The Work Area Few Columns and Rows

Not all spreadsheets have 256 columns and 65000 rows of data. So why show the entire grid when you can, say, just show the 44 rows and 23 columns in which the sales report is presented.

To restrict the work area,

• Select the first column you dont want to see (24th column) and press CTRL+SHIFT+RIGHT ARROW. Now Right click and select “Hide” option.
• Select the first row you dont want to see (45th row) and press CTRL+SHIFT+DOWN ARROW. Now right click and select “Hide” option.

Lock Formula Cells And Protect The Worksheet

Formulas are the most vulnerable part of an excel sheet. You accidentally edit something, say in payroll sparesheet, and you just gave 3200% bonus to someone in the organization. That is alright if that someone is a CEO of a bailed-out bank, but in all other cases, you end up spending a sweet afternoon trying to figure out what went wrong.

So, it is better to lock the workbook formulas and protect the worksheet so that no one accidentally erase the formulas or mess with them. To do this follow the steps in the illustration above.

You can use the same trick to lock the charts and other worksheet objects.

Freeze Panes So that Your boss Knows what she is Reading

Freeze panes is a very useful feature. It locks the important items on the top so even when you scroll down you still see them. (You can do the same for columns, thus seeing the first few column even when scrolling left).

Bonus tip: Use excel tables (new feature in Excel 2007) so that you dont need to freeze panes. Learn more.

Hide Un-necessary / Calculation Sheets

It is fairly common for excel workbooks to have tens worksheets, some with data, some with calculations, some with intermediate stuff and only one or two sheets with actual outcome (like a dashboard or a report).

There is no reason to think that all these worksheets should be visible all the time to the boss. While it makes sense to have the data and calculations visible so that someone can audit the worksheet, I am sure you dont want your boss to waster her time doing that. So here is a handy tip:

• Select all the worksheets other than the output sheets and hide them.

Hide Rows / Columns

If for some reason, hiding worksheets is not possible, you can still try hiding rows and columns. This is a very good way to prevent someone from accidentally messing a with a row of “really big and complicated formulas”.

Just select the rows / columns you want to hide and right click and select the “hide” option.

Include Cell – Comments / Help Messages

We all know bosses have a busy mind. They dont have time to remember (or know) every little thing. Heck, sometimes they dont even know what somethings are.

I suggest using cell comments and help messages to give right information / guidelines to the spreadsheet end user, like “enter your age in this cell”. They are easy to implement and totally non-intrusive.

• To include a cell comment, select the cell and press SHIFT+F2 and write the comment.
  To include a cell message, select the cell, go to data validation, go to “input message” tab and type what you want.

Data Validations, Error Messages

Spreadsheets are complicated things that are carefully crafted with umpteen pre-conditions and assumptions. I am sure there is at least one excel file out there that will only work if a cat enters the input. But we are not talking about cats, the point is, it is important that right data is fed to the worksheet before the formulas (or charts or payroll macro etc.) can work. That is where data validation can help.

It is very easy to set up data validation in excel. Just select the cell and go to data validation (in Data ribbon / menu). There are several ways in which you can set up data validations,

• You can show an incell drop down box and ask users to pick from a list
• You can specify the type of data allowed (dates, times, numbers, text)
• You can specify the length of data
• You can specify the conditions on data (like between 2 numbers, less than a given date etc.)
• You can even use formulas to make your own data validations [example]

There are several examples of using data validation in this site. Go check.

Use Consistent Colors And Schemes

Anything looks better when it is consistent, even when it is internally screwed up. That same rule applies to excel workbooks as well. It will make your boss feel comfortable and relaxed to see an excel workbook with consistent colors and (simple) schemes.

I suggest using excel cell styles to define the styles for your workbooks. This ensures consistency and you dont have to spend after hours formatting the worksheets. Read more about cell styles.

Name and Color Worksheet Tabs Appropriately

It doesnt matter if you have designed an awesome excel dashboard, your boss can be still pissed because the sheet name is “Sheet 69″. That brings us to the last and final point.

Use appropriate names (and may be tab colors) for the worksheet tabs. This makes the navigation easy and boss proof.

Learn how to color excel worksheet tabs.

Before Closing The Workbook, Select Cell A1 On The Correct Sheet

Just before you finally save the workbook and e-mail it to the boss, make sure you are on the right worksheet (ie the dashboard or the report) and selected cell A1. The ensures that when the boss opens the workbook, she sees the right tab with right information, not some calculations or formulas.

That is all, you have just learned a handful of trick to impress your boss.

Share your boss proofing tricks for excel

Got an awesome idea that has been working on your boss? Share it with us in comments. I love to hear your stories and how you are using excel to further your career.

Be awesome, Learn few more excel tricks:

We at PHD have a simple goal – “to make you awesome in excel and charting”. Here is a list of articles I recommend reading if you are new here or just wanted to be more.

• 15 fun and exciting excel tips – who say spreadsheets are boring?
• 15 Excel formulas beyond IF() and SUM()
• 15 Excel productivity tips  that you dont know
• 10 things about Excel 2007 that you should know to work better
• More articles on excel productivity

Dilbert cartoon from Dilbert.com

In today’s quick tip you will learn how to swap chart rows and columns in excel,

In Excel 2007+, select the chart and go to “Design” tab. Here you will see a big-fat-”Switch rows and columns” button. Just click it and thump your chest. See this tutorial to understand.

In Excel 2003, select the chart and in the chart toolbar, you see 2 little buttons, called as “by row” and “by column”. Click the one you want and off you go. See this tutorial to get it.

Read more quick tips and/or charting tips, be awesome at work.