Advanced Excel Chart Skills
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How to use a single Excel stacked bar chart for multiple diverging bar charts to report variance (planning a complex chart in Excel)
One of the visuals I show in my FinancialViz courses is a multiple diverging bar chart that can show variance between actual and budget and actual and last year. This can also be used for actual and relative variances as well. I create it using a stacked bar chart and scatter with straight lines charts.… Continue reading How to use a single Excel stacked bar chart for multiple diverging bar charts to report variance (planning a complex chart in Excel)
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Excel Chart Tip: Add a CAGR line callout to a column chart
When you are reporting sales, shipments, clients served, or any measure where you want to show the growth rate over the period of time along with the values in each period, a column chart with a CAGR line callout can be a good visual to use. Instead of drawing the line on the chart and…
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Use the INDIRECT function to create similar charts in Excel quickly and easily
Recently I’ve been sharing a technique in my client training that increases the payoff for making the effort to create a meaningful chart in Excel. Often we have results for different locations, regions, products, or scenarios to show. We don’t have to compare them to each other, but, for example, each region needs to report…
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Overlapping bar progress graph
One of the common messages reported in financial or operational reports is progress towards a goal. It could be a spending goal, production goal, or any other important metric that is tracked. The decision makers want to see the goal, where we expected to be at this time, and actual progress. Instead of the typical…
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How to create an Excel chart with a dynamic range that you select
Basic dynamic charts A standard chart in Excel uses a defined set of cells for the category axis and the data values. This works for most charts. But what if you want to create a chart where the data range gets bigger or smaller based on criteria? That is where you will want to create…