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How To Create A Project Management Dashboard in Excel

This document provides instructions for creating a project management dashboard in Excel. It describes setting up separate tabs for the dashboard graphics and underlying data. It then explains how to add project task tables, Gantt charts, and graphs displaying task status, budget, and pending items. The data is added to the Notes tab and converted to graphs, which are then cut and pasted onto the dashboard tab. Formatting and customization tips are also included.

Uploaded by

Imran Mulani
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4K views4 pages

How To Create A Project Management Dashboard in Excel

This document provides instructions for creating a project management dashboard in Excel. It describes setting up separate tabs for the dashboard graphics and underlying data. It then explains how to add project task tables, Gantt charts, and graphs displaying task status, budget, and pending items. The data is added to the Notes tab and converted to graphs, which are then cut and pasted onto the dashboard tab. Formatting and customization tips are also included.

Uploaded by

Imran Mulani
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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7/18/2017 Free Excel Project Management Templates

How to Create a Project Management Dashboard in


Excel
Project management dashboards turn your project data into easy-to-read graphics. This
visual report is an easy way to convey project status to clients or stakeholders, without
sharing the nitty-gritty details of your project. At a glance, you can share your project
timeline, overall task status, budget, and pending items.

Here’s how to create a project management dashboard in Excel.

Set Up Your Excel Sheet


A project management dashboard mainly includes graphs, but the full data behind the
graphs still need to exist somewhere in your Excel file. To do this, you must work in two tabs
in your Excel sheet. One tab will house the graphs and the other tab will house all the data
that makes up the graphs. This way, your dashboard doesn’t have any numbers, just
beautiful images.

1. On the bottom of your file, double click on Sheet1 to rename the sheet. We recommend
you change this to Project Dashboard.
2. Then, click the plus sign icon to the right of the tab to add another tab.
3. Double-click on Sheet2 and rename to Notes.
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7/18/2017 Free Excel Project Management Templates

Add Your Project Data


You’ll add all your project data (the raw numbers) in the Notes tab. This data will be used to
make the graphs, which you’ll then move to the Project Dashboard tab.

Make a Project Task Table and Gantt Chart


1. In the Notes tab, create a task table. Add headers for Tasks, Assigned To, Start, End,
Duration, and Status.
2. Add your project information to the table. List the tasks in your project, who is assigned
to each one, the date it starts, the date it ends, how many days the task spans, and the
status (we used Complete, Overdue, In Progress, and Not Started).

3. Then, create a Gantt chart from this task information. Click here for a step-by-step
tutorial on how to make a Gantt chart in Excel.
4. Once you have created the Gantt chart, right-click on the chart and select Cut. Go to
the Project Dashboard tab and right-click and select Paste. You can also copy and
paste parts of your task name if you would like that on your dashboard as well.

Note: We added a Priority column to our task table and used star symbols to convey
importance. To add symbols, click on a cell and in the Insert tab, click Symbols on the far
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7/18/2017 Free Excel Project Management Templates

right-hand side.

Add Graphs for Task Status, Project Budget, and Pending Items
Next, think about what other kind of information you’d like to include in the project
dashboard. In our example, we wanted to create a graph for overall task status, budget, and
pending items.

1. In the Notes tab, create a mini table for each set of data you’d like to visualize. For
example, we wanted to show how many tasks were Complete, Overdue, In Progress,
and Not Started. We put these phases in one column and next to each one, we added
how many projects were in that phase in percentages or fractions. Or, for the budget
graph, we added how much money was planned and how much money was actual.

2. Then, once you’ve added the data, select the table and go to the Insert tab. In
the Charts group, select the chart you’d like to use (pie chart, bar chart, scatter, etc).
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7/18/2017 Free Excel Project Management Templates

3. Repeat for the rest of your data sets.


4. Once you’ve created graphs for each data set, cut and paste the graphs to your Project
Dashboard tab.

Customize Your Project Management Dashboard


1. To change the background color of your task table, click on a cell and in the Home tab,
in the Font group, click the paint bucket icon to choose the color you’d like.
2. To change the colors in your Gantt chart, double-click on a task bar and click Format
Data Series. Click the paint bucket icon, click Fill, and at the bottom, click the paint
bucket icon again to choose the color you’d like.
3. To change the colors of your graphs, double-click on your whole graph or just a section.
The Format Data Point box will appear on the side. Click the paint bucket icon, click Fill,
and at the bottom, click the paint bucket icon again to choose the color.
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