Clearly and Simply

Category: Visualization

  • Select and Highlight across an Excel Dashboard

    Interactive Excel Dashboard visualizing unemployment rates in the EU. Select a country, filter by age group and gender, and see the selection highlighted across all visuals on the dashboard

    1,176 words, ~6 minutes read

    Excel_EU_unemployment_rates_dashboard10 years ago, I published a post demonstrating how to highlight one selected item across all charts and views on an interactive Excel Dashboard:

    Highlighting on Excel Dashboards

    Unlike most of my other publications here, that post actually did make some friends.

    And even more, it won a real fan: my good friend and Microsoft Excel MVP Carlos Barboza (Carlos’ LinkedIn Profile, Carlos’ blog: Spilled Graphics) liked this workbook so much that he even included it in some of his presentations, e.g. his great speech on the Global Excel Summit in 2024.

    Recently Carlos asked me, if I could provide a version with an updated data source. Of course I can. And while I was at it, I also made a couple of (hopefully helpful) changes.

    Today’s article provides this updated version of my European Union Unemployment Rates Dashboard from 2015. It also briefly discusses why interactive dashboards in Excel are still a viable option, even nowadays with Tableau and Power BI.

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  • London Excel Meetup Workbooks

    The workbooks used in my presentation on “Analytical and Interactive Dashboards in Excel” at the London Excel Meetup, September 3, 2020

    233 words, ~1 minute read

    London Excel Meetup GroupEarlier today (September 3, 2020), I had the honour and privilege to give a little presentation about Analytical and Interactive Dashboards in Microsoft Excel at Tea Kuseva’s and Alan Murray’s great London Excel Meetup.

    For everyone who attended the session and anyone else interested, here are the workbooks used in my presentation for free download.

    This is the showcase of the interactive English Premier League Dashboard shown at the beginning of the session: 

    Download Dashboard Showcase Premier League (zipped Excel workbook, 2.5MB)

    And this is the workbook used to present the different tips and tricks:

    Download Analytical and Interactive Dashboards (zipped Excel workbook, 2.2MB)

    I have to admit, the live presentation and performance was a bit sloppy on my side (my apologies), so I recommend to download and dissect the workbooks to get the most out of the meetup. I think both workbooks are worth a look.

    Many thanks go to Tea Kuseva and Alan Murray for organizing the event and having me, to Carlos Barboza for suggesting me as a speaker and of course to everyone who took the time to attend the session.

    If you have any feedback or questions, please leave me a comment here or contact me by email.

    Stay tuned.

  • Animated Races of the 4 Big Football Leagues

    Complementing the previous post: Animated Races of the 4 big Football Leagues in Europe: Premier League, Serie A, La Liga and Bundesliga

    297 words, ~1.5 minutes read

    4 League Logos

    The previous article showed an an Alternative to the Bar Chart Race in Microsoft Excel.

    As an example, the workbook visualized the results of the English Premier League of this season (2019/2020) in an animated chart.

    A few people apparently liked the visualization. I received a couple of emails and LinkedIn messages asking, if I could also provide the same workbook for other football leagues.

    No sweat.

    Here are the according Excel workbooks for Italy’s Serie A, Spain’s La Liga and the German Bundesliga:

    Download Animated Serie A 2019/2020 (zipped Excel workbook, 1.4MB)

    Download Animated La Liga 2019/2020 (zipped Excel workbook, 2.6MB)

    Download Animated Bundesliga 2019/2020 (zipped Excel workbook, 1.6MB)

    And for the sake of completeness, here is the link to the Premier League version again:

    Download Animated Premier League 2019/2020 (zipped Excel workbook, 2.8MB)

    Please note that

    • Except for the Bundesliga, all leagues are still ongoing. The data in the workbook contains only the results up to July 9, 2020. If you want to have a full view of the season, you will have to complete the results on the worksheet [Data] during the upcoming weeks. The fixtures of the remaining matchdays are there already, but the results are missing
    • The workbook for Italy’s Serie A contains an inaccuracy. Just like in the other three leagues, teams tied in points are ranked by Goal Difference first and Goals scored second. This is not correct for Italy: in Serie A, the tie breaker are the matches of these two teams (head-to-head records). Thus, the final table shown in the workbook might not be the official / correct one

    Stay tuned.

  • An Alternative to the Bar Chart Race

    An alternative solution to the controversial animated Bar Chart Races in Microsoft Excel

    1,276 words, ~ 6.5 minutes read

    Alternative to the Bar Chart Race - Intro

    The other day, I watched an as interesting as entertaining dispute between Andy Kirk and Andy Cotgreave about the popular Bar Chart Races: Data Viz Debate: Is the bar chart race more than just a gimmick?

    Although I truly admire Andy Kirk’s work, I am with Andy Cotgreave, here. I wouldn’t go so far to call them the “fidget spinners of data visualization”, but I find them hard to follow, especially when the speed of the animation is too fast.

    Last week, Philip Treacy of MyOnlineTrainingHub published a post and a workbook, how to do a Bar Chart Race in Microsoft Excel. Philip visualized the 2019/2020 Premier League results in an animated Bar Chart. I am a big fan of Mynda and Philip’s MyOnlineTrainingHub, which is definitely one of the best Excel websites worldwide.

    This made me think. Although I love Philip’s work, I am not a fan of the Bar Chart Race. So, how would I approach this? Today’s post provides my solution of an alternative for animated Bar Charts. As always, the post comes with the Excel workbook for free download.

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  • A practical Example for Dynamic Storyboards

    A more practical use case for Dynamic Storyboards in Excel: support the Animation of 2-dimensional data by showing the years before and after the current year on a Storyboard

    717 words, ~3.5 minutes read

    The previous post Dynamic Storyboards in Excel showed how to create small multiples (or panel or trellis charts) for 2-dimensional data in a sequence and let the user decide dynamically, how many small multiples shall be displayed. To describe the technique, the article used a kind of funny, but pointless data set: a part of an episode of the Italian cartoon series La Linea.

    Well, creating a dynamically sized comic strip in Excel is a funny little example. But what’s the point here?

    Gapminder Replica with Storyboard IntroHere’s the point: a Dynamic Storyboard may well be worth considering for a more serious dashboard, too. For instance, a Dynamic Storyboard may support a chart which displays the data for the periods one by one in an animation. The Storyboard can be very useful by showing the data in the context of a user-defined number of years before and after the current period. This can help to better understand the development of the data over time or to discover patterns.

    Today’s post will show how a Dynamic Storyboard may support an animated chart using the example of the Gapminder Replica in Microsoft Excel, published here back in 2014. As usual, the article comes with the workbook for free download.

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