Microsoft IT Showcase

Creating a dashboard to analyze and

visualize your data in Excel 2016
Customization note: This document contains guidance and/or step-by-step installation instructions that can be
reused, customized, or deleted entirely if they do not apply to your organizations environment or installation
scenarios. The text marked by yellow highlight indicates either customization guidance or organization-specific
variables. All of the highlighted text in this document should either be deleted or replaced before distribution.
With Microsoft Excel 2016, included in Office 365, you can turn complex data into interactive dashboards that are easy
to interpret. Todays business environment demands supporting data to make the right decisions. With the huge
amounts of information available from sales activities and day-to-day operations, collecting, reviewing, and analyzing
all that data can be overwhelming. A dashboard helps you monitor important business objectives by bringing the
relevant data together and presenting it in a visually intuitive way. In a dashboard, you can:
Use a variety of charts to highlight your data.
Use a PivotChart to pivot the data in a chart and drill down to see more details.
Use sparklines in a data table to show trends, as a column or line chart that fits inside a cell, and apply
conditional formatting to differentiate data values at a glance.

Power Query and Power Pivot are not currently available for Mac users. To learn more about using Office 365 on your preferred
platform, go to http://support.office.com.

Using Dashboards to share metrics and KPIs

Metrics and key performance indicators (KPI) are at the heart of dashboard visualizationsthey let you know if youre
meeting your objectives. A well-designed dashboard thats connected to live data can provide up-to-date KPIs on an
ongoing basis so that you dont have to wait for a report to be created.
In the context of a dashboard, a metric is a numerical value the represents business data that can be aggregated. For
example, gross sales by month has a measure (such as dollars, euros, or pounds), and a time dimension (month.)
Using the capabilities of the data model, users can create calculations on the aggregate level (measures) using Data
Analysis Expressions (DAX) language.
A KPI is a metric thats tied to a target. Most often, a KPI indicates how far a metric is above or below a
pre-determined target. KPIs are usually shown as a ratio of actual to target, and are designed to let you know at a
glance if youre meeting your metrics goals without having to take a close look at the underlying numbers.

Exploring a dashboard productivity scenario

Lets explore a productivity scenario where an Excel 2016 dashboard helps a team meet their business needs.

A virtual team needs to continuously assess and report on the number of support calls they receive and their
operational costs every month. They decide to dynamically connect to the various data sources that contain that
information and build a dashboard in an Excel 2016 workbook. Once built, their Excel 2016 workbook can be saved to
a OneDrive for Business site and shared.

For consumption on an ad hoc basis, the team can save their dashboard to a SharePoint site and publish it to Power
BI. Finally, the dashboard can be copy and pasted in a PowerPoint slide deck, enabling rich visualizations, for use in
presentations.
Their dashboard includes:
1. Tables with support call numbers and costs.
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2. A PivotTable that shows actual and budgeted support call costs.

3. A sparkline graph (cell B21) that shows the month-by-month call numbers.

4. Status icons in column D that show if support call numbers exceed budgeted numbers.
5. A line chart that shows actual and budgeted support call numbers.

6. A PivotChart (its underlying data is shown in the PivotTable).

7. A slicer to filter the data in the Pivot table by month.

Figure 1. Excel 2016 dashboard

Planning your dashboard

Before you begin, you should make a list of what you want in the dashboardyour plan doesnt need to be extensive
or complex. However, you should be clear about what actions you want to drive based on the dashboard. By first
defining your business goals, it becomes easier to pinpoint what the dashboard will need to include to support those
goals.
To help you prepare a dashboard plan, consider the following:

What kinds of information does your audience need to see, and what is the best way to visualize it?

Tables. A table typically contains related data in a series of worksheet rows and columns that have been
formatted as a table.
Conditional formatting. By applying conditional formatting to your data, you can quickly identify variances
in a range of values with a quick glance.
Charts. You can create traditional charts based on table data or you can use PivotCharts based on pivoted
data. In addition to using conventional charts (columns, bars, lines, etc.) in your dashboard, you can leverage
the new modern chart types.
Sparklines. Unlike charts on an Excel worksheet, sparklines are not objectsa sparkline is actually a tiny
chart in the background of a cell. Sparklines are particularly useful in providing a compact representation of
larger amounts of data that help highlight trends or outliers.
What are the data thresholds and key ranges?

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Will you be looking at trends, in addition to values?

Where are the most critical numbers?
Is there a key target to achieve?
Keep data current by making sure you dont use a static sourceconnect to a dynamic data source in an external file
or database. There should be a means to refresh dashboard contents on demand or on a scheduled basis.

Creating your dashboard

Once you have your dashboard plan in place, it is time to start creating it. This process has three key activities: getting
the data into Excel 2016, using the data model and measures to analyze the data, and creating your charts and
visualizations.

Using Get & Transform to create queries that connect and combine data
sources
There are several types of data sources that you can hook your dashboard up to. You can easily connect to another
Excel workbook, but sometimes, the data you want isnt in an Excel workbook, it might be in a database, an XML file,
on the web, in a text file, or in any number of other data sources. If you simply imported the data, you would have to
import it again and again to keep it current.

Power Query, a feature that you might have used in previous version of Excel, is now known as Get & Transform in
Excel 2016. You can use Get & Transform in Excel 2016 to create a query in your workbook that enables you to
connect to, preview, and transform data from a wide variety of available data sources. You can then load that
transformed data into a table, or into the built-in Data Model in Excel 2016, and refresh that data later on. You can
also edit the query whenever you need to, and share your query, too.

NOTE: This technology is also available for previous versions of Excel with the Power Query Add-In,
available as a download at https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Whats-new-in-Power-Query-
936b2fca-4168-41ad-bbbd-7b83856b6776, as well as in Power BI.

To see Power Query in action in previous versions of Excel, take a look at Getting Started with Power
Query at https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Getting-Started-with-Power-Query-7104fbee-9e62-
4cb9-a02e-5bfb1a6c536a.
On the Data tab, in the Get & Transform group, you can create queries with various data sources:

You can use a query to connect to a single data source, such as an Access database, or you can connect to multiple
files, databases, OData feeds, or Web sites scattered across the Internet. With Get & Transform, you can then bring all
those sources together using your own combinations.

Creating a query from another workbook and its worksheets:

1. On the Data tab, select New Query.

2. Under From File, select From Workbook.

3. Find your workbook, and select Import.

4. In the Navigator dialog box, select a table (worksheet), and select Load.
Once you are connected to the data source, the Get & Transform displays a Navigator window, which allows you to
select which table you want to use in your query.

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Launching the Query Editor

When you connect to a data source, Get & Transform displays a Navigator window, which allows you to select which
table (or tables) you want to use in your query. When you select Edit from the Navigator window, Get & Transform
launches the Query Editor, used to facilitate and display data transformations.
For more information about using Get & Transform to create queries, see Getting Started with Get & Transform in
Excel 2016 at https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Getting-Started-with-Get-Transform-in-Excel-2016-a8310388-
2a12-438c-9d29-c6d29cb8df6a?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US.

Creating queries from data in databases, data feeds, or other external data sources
Sometimes, the data you want isn't in your Excel workbookit might be in a SQL Server, an OLAP cube, in a list or
ODATA data feed on the web, or in one of many other places.

To create a connection with and external data source:

1. On the Data tab, select New Query.

2. Select your source from the list.

The available data sources are presented in the menus. There are many data sources to choose from, including
files like Excel workbooks or CSV files, databases such as Access, SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL, Azure services
such as HDInsight or Blob Storage, and all sorts of other sources such as the Web, SharePoint lists, Hadoop files,
Facebook, Salesforce, and many others.

For more information about connecting to external data sources, including specific guidance for the most common
options, see Connect external data to your workbook at https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Connect-external-
data-to-your-workbook-945F2CBB-D50B-4EE2-BAE8-C4C9381000C6.

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Keeping the data in your workbook up to date

Now that you have connected your Excel 2016 dashboard to external data sources through queries, you can keep the
data in your workbook up to date by refreshing the link to its source. Each time you refresh your queries, you see
the most recent data, including anything thats new or has been deleted.
To refresh all of the connected data in your workbook, select Data, and then select Refresh All.

To refresh only selected data, right-click a cell in the range or table and select Refresh.

For more information about refreshing data from external sources, see Refresh an external data connection in Excel
2016 for Windows at https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Refresh-an-external-data-connection-in-Excel-2016-for-
Windows-1524175f-777a-48fc-8fc7-c8514b984440.

Using the data model and measures to analyze your data

You can use the data model and measures to help analyze your data.

Creating a data model in Excel 2016

A data model is a new approach for integrating data from multiple tables, effectively building a relational data source
inside an Excel workbook. Within Excel, data models are used transparently, providing tabular data used in
PivotTables, and PivotCharts.
When importing relational data, creating a model occurs automatically when you select multiple tables:

1. In Excel, use Data, in the Get & Transform Data group, select New Query to import data from Access or
another relational database that contains multiple related tables.

2. Excel prompts you to select a table. Check Select multiple items.

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3. Select two or more tables, and then select Load.

4. The query editor will open with your selected tables.

You now have a data model that contains all of the tables you imported.
For more information about creating data models in Excel 2016 see, Create a Data Model in Excel at
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Create-a-Data-Model-in-Excel-87E7A54C-87DC-488E-9410-5C75DBCB0F7B.

Managing your data model

1. On the Data tab, select Manage Data Model to view and manage your data model.

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2. The data model will open in Power Pivot for Excel.

To learn more, see the Tutorial: PivotTable data analysis using a Data Model in Excel 2013 (applies to Excel 2016) at
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Tutorial-PivotTable-data-analysis-using-a-Data-Model-in-Excel-2013-
f9ad8310-3b5b-48a3-913d-5cc1b364ee46.

Using measures in Excel 2016

A measure is a formula that is created specifically for numeric data that you want to summarize or analyze in a
PivotTable, PivotChart, or Power View report that uses data in the model. Measures can be based on standard
aggregation functions, such as DISTINCTCOUNT or SUM, or you can use more advanced DAX functions.
An implicit measure is created by Excel when you drag a field, such as Sales Amount, to the Values area of the
PowerPivot Field List. Because implicit measures are generated by Excel, you might not be aware that a new measure
has been created. Implicit measures can only use a standard aggregation (SUM, COUNT, MIN, MAX, DISTINCTCOUNT,
or AVG).
For more information see measures in PowerPivot at
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg399077(v=sql.110).aspx.
Creating measures in Excel 2016
You can then create measures using any of the following approaches:
Create an explicit measure manually, using the New Measure button on the PowerPivot ribbon.
Create an explicit measure manually in the PowerPivot window, in the Calculation Area, by typing a measure
name and formula into the formula area of a cell.
From the field list of PivotTable, you can right-click a table name and add a measure.
When you add the measure, the formula is evaluated for each cell in the Values area of the PivotTable. Because a
result is created for each combination of row and column headers, the result for the measure can be different in each
cell.

For more information about creating measures, see Create a Measure in a PivotTable or PivotChart at
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg399161(v=sql.110).aspx.

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Creating charts and PivotCharts in Excel

Now that you have connected to the data that you want to display in your dashboard, you can create the
visualizations that will make that data more consumable. Charts can make it easier for you to discover meaning from
the data and then communicate your insights.
You can create conventional charts and PivotCharts based on tables, queries, and related PivotTables.

Creating a conventional chart

Conventional charts are best used for aggregated data. To create a chart, simply select the table that contains
aggregated data, and then choose Recommended Charts in the Charts group (on the Insert tab). Or, if you know
the type of chart you want to use, choose its specific icon.

To learn more, see Aggregate data from a column (Power Query) at https://support.office.com/en-
us/article/Aggregate-data-from-a-column-Power-Query-14b85bee-aec4-4816-96d7-372a1439cf5b.

Using the new, modern chart types

Excel 2016 includes modern chart types that provide a rich, new set of storytelling tools that can be customized to fit
your needs.

Figure 2. New, modern chart types

Waterfall. A Waterfall chart provides a simple visual of the running total of your financial data, identifies the
contributions and provides clear subtotals, giving you a ready-to-present financial report in a few clicks.
Histogram. Commonly used in statistics, a histogram automatically displays the frequencies within a distribution.
A histogram will help you explore and analyze a distribution
Pareto. Using the Pareto chart, can help you find the largest impact by automatically sorting the frequency of the
most prevalent issues (the bar graph) and then showing the additive contributions of each issue as you move
along the horizontal axis (the line graph).
Box & Whisker. Like the Histogram chart, the Box & Whisker chart shows the distribution of information. For
deeper analysis, this chart helps bring statistics to distribution by providing key insights about the distribution in
one view, including range, quartiles, mean and outliers.
Treemap. The Treemap chart draws the big picture, so you can draw comparisons between similar or competing
products. The Treemap is an ideal visualization to help you analyze across hierarchies in one view by providing a
hierarchical view of your data and an easy way to compare different levels of categorization. With Treemap, large
datasets with innate groupings can be effectively visualized in a simple way.

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Sunburst. While using a Treemap chart is ideal for comparing the relative sizes of groups, the Sunburst chart
shows the full hierarchy of the groups to provide deeper analysis capabilities. With a Sunburst chart, its easy to
see the largest contributing segments within a hierarchy of multiple levels. The visual layout is intuitively natural
for finding how each slice is broken down to the most basic contribution. The Sunburst is versatile, displaying any
number of levels for any category.
Learn more at https://blogs.office.com/2015/07/02/introducing-new-and-modern-chart-types-now-available-in-
office-2016-preview.

Creating a PivotChart
To create a PivotChart from a single table in Excel, simply select the table containing the data, and then choose
PivotChart in the Charts group (on the Insert tab).

To learn more, see Create a PivotChart in Excel 2016 for Windows at https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Create-
a-PivotChart-in-Excel-2016-for-Windows-b7668cdd-1981-4271-9ce1-9de5a71c230a.

Creating a sparkline
Sparklines are tiny charts inside single worksheet cells that can be used to visually represent and show a trend in your
data. Sparklines can draw attention to important items such as seasonal changes or economic cycles and highlight the
maximum and minimum values in a different color. Showing trends in your worksheet data can be useful, especially
when youre sharing your data with other people.
To include a sparkline in your dashboard:

1. Select a blank cell near the data you want to show in a sparkline.

2. On the Insert tab, in the Sparklines group, select Line, Column, or Win/Loss.

3. In the Data Range box, enter the range of cells that has the data you want to show in the sparkline. For example,
if your data is in cells A, B, C, and D of row 2, enter A2:D2.

If youd rather select the range of cells on the worksheet, select to show the dialog box in full.
4. Select OK.
5. The Sparkline Tools appear on the ribbon. You can use the commands on the Design tab to customize your
sparklines.

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To learn more about customizing your sparkline or using sparklines to analyze data trends, see Analyze trends in data
using sparklines at https://support.office.com/en-US/article/analyze-trends-in-data-using-sparklines-be6579cf-a8e3-
471a-a459-873614413ce1.

Sharing your dashboard with others

Now that youve created and tested your dashboard, youre ready to share it with others. You can make it widely
available by saving it to OneDrive for Business or publishing it to a SharePoint library, where others can access it
through Excel Online, and apply filters or pivot data. You can also publish it to the Power BI site, or link dynamically to
it in a PowerPoint slide deck.

Sharing and collaborating directly in Excel 2016

OneDrive for Business is an integral part of Office 365 or SharePoint Server, and provides a place in the cloud where
you can store, share, and sync your work files. Not only can you can update and share your files from any device with
OneDrive for Business, you can use it to collaborate on Office documents. You can even work with your colleagues on
different sections of the same document, at the same time.

NOTE: OneDrive for Business is different from OneDrive, the personal cloud storage solution. OneDrive for
Business is also different from your Office 365 team site, which is intended for storing team or project-
related documents. If you have a small business, its ideal to set up your file storage to use OneDrive for
Business and Office 365 team sites together. For more information, see https://support.office.com/en-
US/article/set-up-your-file-storage-7aa9cdc8-2245-4218-81ee-86fa7c35f1de.

To learn more about using OneDrive for Business, see Save a workbook to OneDrive for Business at
https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Save-a-workbook-to-OneDrive-for-Business-981691f3-9f67-4fa9-b99f-
e0cf2b224d95.

Save to a SharePoint site

You can save your workbook to a SharePoint document library so that colleagues can view and make changes to it.
Learn more about saving and working with Office documents in SharePoint by reading Get started with SharePoint at
https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Get-started-with-SharePoint-909ec2f0-05c8-4e92-8ad3-3f8b0b6cf261.

Publish to Power BI
You can easily publish your Excel workbook directly to your Power BI site, where you can create highly interactive
reports and dashboards based on your workbooks data. You can then share your insights with others in your
organization.

Some things to note about publishing to Power BI.

Currently, before you can publish to Power BI, your workbook must be saved to OneDrive for Business. Please
refer to the the Publish to PowerBI page to see new Save locations as they are added.
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-service-publish-from-excel/?ui=en-US&rs=en-
US&ad=US
The account you use to sign in to Office, OneDrive for Business, and Power BI must be the same account.
You cannot publish an empty workbook or a workbook that doesnt have any Power BI-supported content.
You cannot publish encrypted or password-protected workbooks, or workbooks with Information Protection
Management.
Publishing to Power BI requires that modern authentication be enabled (default). If disabled, the Publish option is
not available from the File menu.

To publish your Excel workbook

1. In Excel, select File and then Publish.
NOTE. If your workbook isnt already saved to OneDrive for Business, youll need to save it there first.
Select Save to Cloud and choose a location in OneDrive for Business.

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2. Once your workbook is saved to OneDrive for Business, when you select Publish, youll get two options on how
to get your workbook into Power BI.

Upload your workbook to Power BI. Your workbook will appear in Power BI just like it would in Excel
Online. But, unlike Excel Online, youll have some features to help you pin elements from your worksheets to
dashboards. You cant edit your workbook in Power BI, but if you need to make some changes, you can
select Edit, and then choose to edit your workbook in Excel Online or open it in Excel on your computer. Any
changes you make are saved to the workbook on OneDrive for Business.
Export workbook data to Power BI. Any supported data in tables and/or a data model are exported into a
new dataset in Power BI. You can continue editing your workbook. When your changes are saved, theyll be
synchronized with the dataset in Power BI, usually within about an hour, or you can just select Publish again.
Any visualizations you have in reports and dashboards will be updated, too.
NOTE: If you have any Power View sheets, those will be re-created in Power BI as reports. For more
information, see Roadmap for Power View in Excel at https://support.office.com/en-
us/article/Roadmap-for-Power-View-in-Excel-c1f0d0f7-adef-4f03-ae35-46d83294e96b.

3. When you choose either option, Excel will sign in to Power BI with your current account, and then publish your
workbook to your Power BI site. Keep an eye on the status bar in Excel. It shows how things are going.
4. When complete, you can go to Power BI right from Excel.

To learn more, see Publish to Power BI from Excel 2016 at https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-

us/documentation/powerbi-service-publish-from-excel/.
For users running earlier version of Excel, or users that require more advanced publishing options, you can download
and use the Power BI Publisher add-in for Excel. Learn more at https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-
us/documentation/powerbi-publisher-for-excel/.

Link your dashboard dynamically in a PowerPoint slide deck

If you want to create a presentation to share the data in your dashboard, you can insert the worksheet that contains
your dashboard as a dynamic link in PowerPoint. The data from your saved Excel spreadsheet is linked to your
PowerPoint presentation, if data is changed in the spreadsheet, it will be updated in your PowerPoint presentation.

To insert the Excel spreadsheet that contains your dashboard into PowerPoint:

1. In PowerPoint, on the Insert tab, select Object.

2. In the Insert Object dialog box, select Create from file.

3. Select Browse, and in the Browse box, find the Excel workbook with the data you want to insert and link to.

4. Before you close the Insert Object box, select Link, and select OK.

For more information

Microsoft IT
http://www.Microsoft.com/ITShowcase

Power BI
https://powerbi.microsoft.com

Introduction to Microsoft Power Query for Excel

https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Introduction-to-Microsoft-Power-Query-for-Excel-6E92E2F4-2079-4E1F-
BAD5-89F6269CD605

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Get & Transform in Excel 2016

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Get-Transform-in-Excel-2016-881c63c6-37c5-4ca2-b616-
59e18d75b4de?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

Connect a SQL Server database to your workbook

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Connect-a-SQL-Server-database-to-your-workbook-22c39d8d-5b60-4d7e-
9d4b-ce6680d43bad

Connect external data to your workbook

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Connect-external-data-to-your-workbook-945F2CBB-D50B-4EE2-BAE8-
C4C9381000C6

Create a PivotChart in Excel 2016 for Windows

https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Create-a-PivotChart-in-Excel-2016-for-Windows-b7668cdd-1981-4271-9ce1-
9de5a71c230a

2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the
trademarks of their respective owners. This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

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