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Lecture - 1 - Introduction To Dashboard

The document discusses using conditional formatting in Excel to highlight important information in dashboards. It provides examples of using data bars, icon sets, and color scales to flag outliers or categories in data. Challenge exercises walk through applying these techniques to sample workbooks and building custom conditional formatting formulas.

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RealGenius (Carl)
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23 views4 pages

Lecture - 1 - Introduction To Dashboard

The document discusses using conditional formatting in Excel to highlight important information in dashboards. It provides examples of using data bars, icon sets, and color scales to flag outliers or categories in data. Challenge exercises walk through applying these techniques to sample workbooks and building custom conditional formatting formulas.

Uploaded by

RealGenius (Carl)
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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-)Course Name: INTRODUCTION TO EXCEL DASHBOARD

Course # :
Lecturer : Natalie Rose
Date : October 31, 2019
Lecture # 1 : Introduction to Conditional Formatting

INTRODUCTION TO CONDITIONAL FORMATTING

Dashboards are not only for managers however they can be show areas of performance or
problems. With dashboards Excel users can replace a chart or table that managers no longer care
about with a figure that’s critically important.

Conditional Formatting
When using conditional formatting you will be formatting one or more cells that are based on
values by using colours, icons and data bars.

To Use Preset Conditional Formatting


Excel has a number of presets that you can use to quickly apply conditional
formatting to your cells. They are grouped into three categories:
a. Data Bars are horizontal bars added to each cell, much like a bar graph.
b. Color Scales change the color of each cell based on its value. Each color scale uses a two or
three color gradient. For example, in the Green - Yellow - Red color scale, the highest
values are green, average values are yellow, and the lowest values are red.
c. Icon Sets add a specific icon to each cell based on its value.

DATA BAR
Data Bar allows you to get a quick look at your data point compare with other data points in the
range.
1. Select the cells you want to add the formatting to.
2. In the Home tab, click the Conditional Formatting command. A drop-down menu will
appear.
3. Select Data Bars then, select the desired preset

Challenge # 1 – Data Bars to highlight to bottom price items


1. Open the Challenge #1 – Data Bars workbook.
2. Highlight the Price Column
3. Click on Conditional Formatting
4. Choose Data Bar
5. Click on the Blue data bar
6. Try the Gross column and use the light blue data bar
7. Let us look at the discount column and choose the blue data bar. Notice that everything goes
red. This is a blue rule with red highlights.

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8. Go to Conditional Formatting and choose Manage Rules.
9. Click on the data bar and choose Edit
10. Choose Negative Value and Axis
11. Go ahead and change the fill colour to Yellow
12. Try the Variance column on your own. Make sure the axis position is Midpoint.
13. Try changing the axis position to none. What do you see?

ICON SETS
Icon sets allow you to classify data into categories by value.

Challenge # 2 – Icons set on your Dashboard


1. Open the Challenge #2 – Icon Sets workbook.
2. Under Breakdown by Product Line
3. Highlight the Variance Column and build a Sign Rule
4. Notice that the positive values are green and the negative values are yellow and red. We need
to fix the negative signs.
5. Go to Manage Rules and the rules are managed by percentages.
6. Change the type to Number
7. Change the green sign to > 0 and the yellow sign should be >=-500
8. Insert a new column after Variance. We are going to place our signs in that column.
9. Copy the formula from the Variance column and copy to the new column.
10. Clear the rules from the Variance column
11. Go into manage rules and choose Edit – then Show Icons only.
12. Try the % of target using the check mark signs. Use > 1 for check mark, >=.95 as the ‘X’
mark and change the exclamation mark to the dash mark ‘’.

COLOUR SCALES
For Colour scales to appear in each cell of a selected range use the colour and shade to represent
higher and lower values. Colour should be used as an accent.

Challenge # 3 – Colour Scales


1. Open the Challenge #3 – Colour Scales workbook.
2. Highlight from B5 to Q12.
3. Click on Conditional Formatting then choose Colour scales
4. Choose the Green-White Colour scales. The Green represents the highest values and the white
represents the lowest numbers.
5. Apply the conditional Rules with the top three (3) items.
6. Format the Rule with Green fill with dark green text
7. Notice you will see the products that fall in the top 3 – Important products.
8. Try the heat scale for the total at the bottom
9. Use the Blue-White-Red Colour scales
10. Change the red to yellow.

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FUNCTION using LOGICS

In Excel one of the powerful features is ability to calculate numerical information using
formulas.

Challenge # 4 – Logics for True and False


1. Open the Challenge #4 – Logics workbook.
2. Select F4 to F10 and check if column B has tents you can use =B4=”Tent” This will check if
display True or False
3. Select G4 to G10 and use the IF statement to return values. Here is the formula
=IF(B4=”Text”, D4, 0)
4. Select H4 to H10 and check if the product is a tent and the size is 3.
5. Type =AND(B4=”Tent”, C4=3). You will see True and False
6. Select I4 to I10 and wrap it in an if statement. =IF(AND(B4=”Tent”, C4=3),B4, “ “)
7. What if you want to find all products that are tent or the size is 3? Select J4 to J10 and write
=IF(OR(B4=”Tent”, C4=3),B4, “ “). With the OR if one of the condition is met, the product
will be displayed.

Writing your own FORMULAS


For your CONDITIONAL FORMATS

Challenge # 5 – Writing your formula


1. Place your cursor at A10 and press Ctrl+Shift+END. This will highlight all the cells with
information.
2. Let us build a new rule. Choose Conditional Formatting and select New Rule
3. Choose Use a Formula to determine which cells to format.
4. We want to check the vendor column with the vendor name is D5. In the Format values
where this formula is here, type =$C10=$D$5. Use F4 to toggle between absolute and
relative references. Note the $D$5 is a absolute reference while $C10 is a relative reference.
Relative references change when a formula is copied to another cell whereas Absolute
references remain constant, no matter where they are copied.
5. Now that we have completed the references, click on Format and change the fill colour to
yellow.
6. Keep the cells highlighted.
7. Go back to the New Rule and check if the month number in position D6 is equal to 6. Type
=MONTH($D10)=$D$6
8. Choose a red font bold and italics.
9. The good thing about the rule is that you did not set up a red font on yellow background rule
however the red font is layered on the yellow background.
10. Try building a new rule to find the units sold are less than 7 AND the sales $ are greater than
1500. If true use a white font on green background.
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11. Type =AND($E10<$D$7, $F10>$H$7) Remember to change your font and background
colours

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