How to turn an Excel spreadsheet into a dashboard
You have a spreadsheet with hundreds of rows and need to explain what is in it. Here is how to get from raw rows to a dashboard and a short written summary in a few minutes.
What a good dashboard answers
A dashboard is useful when it answers three questions at a glance: how much in total, how it changes over time, and which groups drive the result.
Step 1: Check the shape of your data
Dashboards work best with one row per record and one column per attribute. A date column, one or two category columns and a numeric column are enough. You don’t have to clean everything first: title rows, merged cells and total rows are handled for you.
Step 2: Open the file
Go to the Excel dashboard maker and drop your file. It is read in your browser, so nothing is uploaded.
Step 3: Read the dashboard
You get KPI cards with change versus the previous period, a trend chart, share and ranking charts for your main categories, and a written summary.
Step 4: Filter and focus
Pick a category or date range in the filter bar, or click any bar or slice to filter every chart at once. A table of matching rows appears underneath.
Step 5: Share it
Rename the dashboard, then copy it as an image or export it as a PDF.
Other ways to build a dashboard
Excel PivotTables with slicers, Google Sheets with pivot tables, and Looker Studio all build dashboards you can maintain over time; they take longer to set up. For a quick answer from one spreadsheet, a tool that builds the dashboard for you saves most of the work.