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The purpose of management reports should be to help
readers find and track patterns of performance…quickly
and easily.
That’s the attraction of charts, of course. But
should we always plot the raw data? Or should we ever
transform it somehow? To see one type of transformation
that’s often revealing, take a look at these two
figures...
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This
new Excel dashboard should interest you in several ways:
If your business relies on the health of the US
economy, this dashboard provides insights you probably
won't find elsewhere.
If you need to distribute your dashboards
electronically, the linked page illustrates two
techniques to consider.
And if you use Excel dashboards now, this dashboard
illustrates some of the ways you can expand it to meet
your information needs.
Click the link to get a closer look at our
new US
Economic Overview Excel dashboard.
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In a chart of business performance, an upward-sloping line could indicate good news or bad.
If the chart shows profits or sales, an upward-sloping line is good news. But if the chart shows expenses or measures
about problem areas, an upward-sloping line, or a rising series of column plots, shows us bad news.
The Wall Street Journal uses indicators like the ones shown here. And you can add similar indicators to your own
chart figures…if you know three tips.
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See Our Free Recorded Webinars
Charley Kyd recently started to give free webinars about
his Excel dashboard products. Honestly, giving webinars
is a new experience for him, so he won't win any Emmy
Awards. But even so, the webinars offer some good
information. You'll find them here:
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Are you looking for a job? Or are you concerned you
might need to look for one soon? We'd like to help.
Post samples of your Excel dashboard reports at ExcelUser.com, along with your employment and contact information…for free.
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Many companies find ways to thrive in recessions. These
well-run companies find ways to adapt; they change
quickly; and they grow.
But in too many companies, change crawls along at a
snail's pace. Harvard's John P. Kotter explains how to
encourage A Sense of
Urgency for changing your organization's
performance.
And Excel plays a critical role.
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The
purpose of any Excel report is to give its readers the
most-useful information in the shortest-possible reading
time.
Which type of report is best?
Standard Excel reports certainly are the most widely
used. But Excel dashboards have gained a lot of
supporters. Compare two reports of the same data and decide for
yourself.
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Amazon.com says their new Kindle DX is great for reading
newspapers, textbooks, and other commercial
publications. But the DX also could offer Excel users a
huge advantage.
Will Kindle DX transform how Excel users deliver
Excel reports and other types of management information?
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This is the most powerful Excel dashboard
report we've ever offered. And you can show off your own data with
it in a few hours.
IncSight DB includes 20 dashboard report workbooks all
linked to an Excel database. Update your database and then print
your reports. Choose from 20 new color schemes, or use your favorite
color scheme from
IncSight PNP.
IncSight DB also can automatically synchronize the Y axes
of any charts you specify. It can auto-scale your Y-axis labels,
displaying "Thousands", "Millions", etc., as appropriate. It let's
you switch currencies easily, lets you change labels like "Billion"
to "Thousand Million" quickly.
Follow the link to learn more about
IncSight DB.
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This chart displays
eleven years of
seasonal data in new way.
It's called a Cycle Plot.
Here, the chart shows the trend for all sales in each of the twelve months. The green
horizontal line shows the average sales for each month.
We show you how to create Cycle Plots of your own data.
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This figure shows two graphs from the first
spreadsheet dashboard report, created using Lotus 1-2-3 in 1984. Each line of the
charts consists of text in cells. We offer more examples of this report and offer a
brief description of how it was created.
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Many people -- accustomed to standard Excel reports -- doubt
that Excel can generate great looking reports. These sample
Excel dashboards might change your mind.
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Is
your company spending many thousands of dollars for
business dashboards that serve up your performance measures like pablum?
There's an excellent chance that you are. We provide several
examples for your consideration.
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Only a few books explain general reporting techniques that
can help readers understand business data more easily. We
examine several recent books that offer excellent advice
about ways to present your business data more clearly.
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Management reports often must compare measures of
performance by some type of category. Excel dot plots provide an excellent way to display
this information clearly. We explain how you can bring dot
plots to your own reports.
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PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT
You can use Excel to create great-looking magazine-quality reports. But
can dashboards improve your bottom
line?
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REPORTING IDEAS
We use
real data in Excel to explain the benefits of using small charts
for reporting. |
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DASHBOARD CLUTTER
Using dashboard gauges for reporting typically is a mistake.
We explain why, and show
how Excel charts provide a more effective solution.
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DASHBOARD SAMPLES
Most Excel don't know the power Excel offers
for making dashboards. Here's a gallery of dashboard examples. |
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DASHBOARD INTRO
Excel is an excellent tool for dashboard
reporting. But why should your company use dashboards in the
first place?
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COMPANIES YOU KNOW
Check here to see a growing list of charts,
tables, and dashboard reports.
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