Function

• Relying on Excel's robust, analytical functions and the application's graphical resources, Excel dashboards condense multiple pages of analyses of a typical report into mini reports on one page or a few pages. Excel dashboards present dynamic, interactive and animated reports that allow for quick analysis and decision making. Company leaders may view comparisons and analyses of company divisions, trend areas, data subgroups or overall performance at a glance and may perform "what if" analyses by entering information on input screens.
  
  

Features

• The comprehensive tools included in Excel makes the application a powerhouse dashboard tool. Key indicators are presented using choice colors, functions, charts, graphs and graphics. Dashboards retrieve data from worksheets within the workbook, external workbooks and/or external databases. According to Microsoft.com, five key Excel features make Excel excellent for dashboard reporting: Excel dashboards can be of magazine quality, provides flexibility, includes analytical power, can find errors and has a low learning curve because many business users are already familiar with Excel.
  
  

Benefits

• Aesthetically pleasing, Excel dashboards present business intelligence in a format that is easy to absorb. Excel dashboards are automatically updated as data resources are updated, and because Excel dashboards pull information from any data source in real time, managers are able to view complex relationships on demand. The on-demand feature is enhanced because there is no wait time for analytical reports and pages of analyses are reduced to one report that can be filtered according to the viewer's preference.
  
  

Misconceptions

• The quality appearance and the analytical strength of Excel dashboards may indicate that programming skills are required to create these vibrant reporting tools. Not so! Many of the functions used to create Excel dashboards are already included in Excel. For example, some of the automatic filters may use pivot tables, which can be updated using macros. Of course, once you have created your impressive, interactive Excel dashboard, you will have to send it to your information systems department so that they can make it available for use by all managers---but, the creation and design can be done by you.
  
  

Warning

• While Excel dashboard reporting may be a visually-impressive business intelligence tool, keep in mind that bad data may look just as impressive as good data. Make use of Excel's error-checking functions in your dashboard reports. Take Microsoft's advice: Create formulas to compare data to other data and search for erroneous information such as missing or extreme values. Use your formulas to display error alerts in your dashboards.