microsoft office excel 2007 dashboards reports for dummies 221

Excel® 2007
Dashboards & Reports
FOR

DUMmIES
by Michael Alexander

‰


Excel® 2007 Dashboards & Reports For Dummies®
Published by
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


About the Author
Michael Alexander is a Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD)
with over 14 years experience consulting and developing office solutions. He
is the author/co-author of several books on business analysis using Microsoft
Excel and Access. Michael is one of 96 Microsoft Excel MVPs worldwide who
has been recognized for his contributions to the Excel community. He is also
the principal player behind DataPigTechnologies.com, a site that offers video
tutorials to beginning and intermediate Excel and Access users. He currently

lives in Frisco, Texas where he works as a Senior Program Manager for a
top technology firm. Michael can be contacted at mike@datapig
technologies.com.


Dedication
For my family.

Author’s Acknowledgments
My deepest thanks to Greg Croy, Christopher Morris, Loren Abdulezer and
all the professionals at Wiley who have helped bring this book to fruition.
And a special thank you to my beautiful wife Mary who will open this book
long enough to read the dedication and acknowledgments.


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Index
highlighting in charts, 190–192
incorporating into dashboards, 178–179
interactive, creating using pivot tables,
179–182
Top/Bottom Rules predefined scenario,
conditional formatting, 113–116
trend lines, when to avoid showing,
283, 284
trending
chart types for, 153–155
comparative, 161–167
directional, 171–172
dos and don’ts, 153–161
highlighting specific time periods,
167–171
inserting dividing lines, 169–170
label management, 159–161
overview, 153
representing forecasts in components,
170–171
secondary axis, 164–167
side-by-side time comparisons, 161–163
stacked time comparisons, 163–164
starting vertical chart axis at zero,

155–157
when to use logarithmic scale, 157–159
trends, defined, 153
trusted locations, macros and, 222–223
Tufte, Edward, 174, 283

•U•
Update Links command, 275
user requirements, gathering, 12–13

•V•
Value Field Settings dialog box, 64–66,
80–83
values area, pivot tables, 52–53
VAR function, 66
VARP function, 66
vertical axis
in pivot charts, 105–107
as primary axis, 165
starting at zero in trending charts, 155–157

views, pivot tables
creating, 74–83
highlighting in charts, 190–192
incorporating into dashboards, 178–179
interactive, 179–182
month-over-month variance, 82–83
percent distribution, 80–81
top and bottom, 74–77
YTD totals, 81–82

visualization, formula-driven
creating with Wingdings, 148–149
in-cell charting, 145–147
overview, 144
VLOOKUP function
applying formulas in data models, 35–36
Col_index_num argument, 35
defined, 33–34
HLOOKUP function, compared with, 37
Lookup_value argument, 34
overview, 34–35
Range_lookup argument, 35
syntax, 34–35
Table_array argument, 34–35

•W•
Wiley Web site, 5
Wingdings, 148
wizards
Data Connection Wizard, 255–257
MS Query wizard, 258–263
workbooks, Excel
impact of pivot cache on memory usage
and file size, 61
macro for ease of navigating, 223–224
macro switchboard example, 223–224
protecting
overview, 266–268
passwords, 273
structure, 272–273

worksheets, 270–271
separate worksheets for data, analysis,
and presentation, 25–26
worksheets, Excel
problem of too much data, 30–31
protection

317


318

Excel 2007 Dashboards & Reports For Dummies
applying, 270–271
for passwords, 270–271
removing, 271–272
ways to, 268–272
reports as data models, 27–28
separate ones for data, analysis, and
presentation, 25–26
single-tab limitations, 31–32
sorting data, 288
unlocking editable ranges, 269–270

•X•
x-axis, in pivot charts, 105–107
.xlsm file extension, 223
.xlsx file extension, 223
XPS (XML Paper Specification) files, 278

XY scatter plot charts
defined, 88
illustrated, 89
preparing data for, 91

•Y•
y-axis
in pivot charts, 105–107
as primary axis, 165
starting at zero in trending charts,
155–157
year
aggregating pivot table data by, 78–80
year to date (YTD) totals, pivot table
view, 81–82
YTD (year to date) totals, pivot table view,
81–82