November 20, 2017 NEAIR Jersey City. Dashboard Design in Excel Beyond the Basics. Rich Hetherington Merima Babić

Transcription

1 November 20, 2017 NEAIR Jersey City Dashboard Design in Excel Beyond the Basics Rich Hetherington Merima Babić 1

2 Temple University At A Glance Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 17 Schools/Colleges Including 5 Professional Schools 8 Campuses (including Rome & Japan) 550+ Academic Programs 40,000+ Students 3,800+ Faculty 2

3 Focus Dashboard Fundamentals Why Excel? Design Components Setting up your data Control Tables Mechanics Worksheet Navigation Components Security VBA 3

4 Dashboard Fundamentals Start with users not data. Test with users and iterate. Don t flood the user with data because you can. Design like a news paper. Don t over complicate visualizations. Use visualizations, language, icons and design patterns that users are familiar with. Put an emphasis on readability. Don t waste space with logos. 4

5 Dashboard Fundamentals Most Important Information The layout of the dashboard can be roughly divided into four quadrants based on the importance it accords to its respective content. The top-left quadrant is the section that gains the maximum attention from the user so the most important metrics should occupy this section. The other metrics should then be distributed based on their order of importance 5

6 Dashboard Fundamentals Consider Your Audience Ask how a dashboard will be used and design for next step actions. What information does the reader need to be successful? How much detail does the reader need? What action can be taken and how? How are exceptions or insights that need action highlighted? What learned or cultural assumptions may affect design choices? What do colors mean and can they be visually interpreted? Which icons are familiar? Don t forget to use color blind friendly palettes or icons. 6

7 Dashboard Fundamentals Use Best Practice Dashboard Designs Good design should tell a story with data that does not become overwhelming with way too much information, clutter or noise. Limit content to fit entirely on one screen. Be cognizant of audience natural textual reading tendency. Starting with the highest level of detail in the upper corner of the screen and show more detail you move down in the direction the audience is used to reading. Keep your dashboard simple with only a 3 to 5 key values, charts, or tables. Avoid putting too much information on a dashboard. Remember to provide adequate context and keep related items near each other. Avoid displaying singular numbers without any other context. Show degrees of change for quick comparisons. Avoid data visualization variety for the sake of variety. If detail tables are needed, place them on the bottom of the dashboard 7

8 Dashboard Fundamentals Avoid Common Data Visualization Issues Choose appropriate data visualizations. Don t use charts that distort reality i.e. 3-D charts. Keep in mind that it is difficult for the human brain to interpret circular shapes. Pie charts, donut charts, gauges and other circular chart types may look pretty but they are not a data visualization best practice. Be consistent with chart scales on axes, chart dimension ordering and also the colors used for dimension values within charts. Be sure to encode quantitative data nicely. Don t exceed three or four numerals when displaying numbers. Display measures to one or two numerals left of the decimal point and scale for thousands or millions i.e. 3.4 million not 3,400,000. Don t mix levels of precision and time. Make sure that time frames are well understood. Don t have one chart that has last month next to filtered charts from a specific month of the year. Don t mix big and small measures on the same scale, such as on a line or bar chart. For example one measure can be in the millions and the other measure in the thousands. With such a large scale, it would be difficult to see the differences of the measure that is in the thousands. Don t clutter your charts with data labels that are not needed. The values in bar charts are usually well understood without displaying the actual number. 8

9 Dashboard Fundamentals Three Types of Dashboards A dashboard is a single display that in a glance provides essential information for a specific objective. Since you are limited to a single display capable of being monitored at a glance, the first step of dashboard design is to select the purpose of your dashboard. Will it be Strategic, Analytical or Operational? Answering this question will keep your dashboard from falling victim to trying to be everything to everyone. 9

10 Dashboard Fundamentals Three Types of Dashboards Operational Dashboards Monitor real time operations and alerts Tool: Enterprise reporting systems Frequently updated Provides record level alerts Drill through to more detail Strategic Dashboards Provides overall health of organization Used to identify potential opportunities for further analysis Simple, less detail Less interactive Analytical Dashboards Provide data required to understand trends Compares across time Data dense Most complex of all 3 Most interactive than all 3 Multiple filters 10

11 Why Excel? Analytic dashboards yes? Move past pivot charts Ability to lock down the mechanics not to mention the data Flexibly in format, navigation, content etc. 11

12 Excel Key Skills Required Topic Formulas =IF(A6= TRUE,"UG","GR") Absolute reference $A$2, A$2 & $A2 Error Handling =IFERROR (value, value_if_error) Named ranges VLOOKUP =VLOOKUP(DASHBOARD!A2,CTRL_TABLE!A1:B22,2,FALSE) Conditional Formatting Data Validation 12

13 Excel Key Skills Required Topic Protect Sheet Protect Workbook Editable Ranges Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) Active X Controls 13

14 Let s get started! 14

15 Design Components Core Components - Excel Worksheets Data Mechanics Control Tables Dashboard Pages Aggregated Data Metric Value Method Multiple Sources Variables Vlookups Chart/Visual Data Sources Decoding Drop Down Boxes Presentation Layer Interactivity Option Selection Objects 15

16 Design Components Data Tab Existing scripts to aggregate data Multiple datasets Stackable Append new years and new data types Hidden Metric & Value method 16

17 Setting up Your Data Metric & Value Method BU 2016 GR WH College Code Year Level Race Code Union ALL 17

18 Setting up Your Data Metric & Value Method 18

19 Control Tables Decoding Labels Drop Down Boxes 19

20 Mechanics Tab 20

21 Dashboard Interactivity (Drop Down Menu, Data Validation) 21

22 Dashboard Interactivity (Radio Buttons) Always add 2 Radio Buttons Always use the Active X Controls LinkedCell property Used to show/hide columns in order to toggle between UG and GR data. 22

23 Dashboard Interactivity (Image Buttons) Always add 2 Image Buttons Always use the Active X Controls Used to show/hide chart objects in order to toggle between current year data and longitudinal data. 23

24 Hiding Columns Switch Between UG and GR Metrics Private Sub OptionButton1_Click() ActiveSheet.Protect, UserInterfaceOnly:=True Range("H:O").EntireColumn.Hidden = False Range("Q:X").EntireColumn.Hidden = True End Sub Private Sub OptionButton2_Click() ActiveSheet.Protect, UserInterfaceOnly:=True Range("H:O").EntireColumn.Hidden = True Range("Q:X").EntireColumn.Hidden = False End Sub 24

25 Hiding Objects Switch Between Single Year and Longitudinal Private Sub Image1_Click() ActiveSheet.Protect, UserInterfaceOnly:=True ActiveSheet.ChartObjects("Chart 1").Visible = False ActiveSheet.ChartObjects("Chart 2").Visible = False ActiveSheet.ChartObjects("Chart 3").Visible = False End Sub Private Sub Image2_Click() ActiveSheet.Protect, UserInterfaceOnly:=True ActiveSheet.ChartObjects("Chart 1").Visible = True ActiveSheet.ChartObjects("Chart 2").Visible = True ActiveSheet.ChartObjects("Chart 3").Visible = True Example of other ways to use: Private Sub Image2_Click() ActiveSheet.Protect, UserInterfaceOnly:=True ActiveSheet.ChartObjects("Chart 1").Visible = False Range("b8").Value = "Enrollment by Race/Ethnicity" ActiveSheet.ChartObjects("Chart 3").Visible = False Range("I8").Value = "Undergraduate Admissions (Freshmen)" Range("n8").Value = "Graduate Admissions - Master's" ActiveSheet.Shapes.Range(Array("TextBox 9")).Visible = False ActiveSheet.Shapes("Group 22").Visible = True ActiveSheet.Shapes.Range(Array("TextBox 493")).Visible = True ActiveSheet.Shapes.Range(Array("TextBox 16")).Visible = False End Sub End Sub 25

26 Security Hiding Worksheets Alt + F11 Opens VBA Choose Worksheet Hide, Data, Mechanics and CTRL_TABLE 26

27 Security Turning Off Excel Features Private Sub Workbook_Open() 'Ribbon 'Toolbar 'Scroll Area 'Activate first sheet 'Formula Bar 'Headers Application.ScreenUpdating = False Windows(ThisWorkbook.Name).Visible = True Application.ScreenUpdating = True Dim wrkbk As Workbook Dim wrksh As Worksheet Dim prev As Window Set prev = ActiveWindow For Each wrkbk In Workbooks For Each wrksh In wrkbk.worksheets wrksh.activate ActiveWindow.DisplayHeadings = False Application.DisplayFormulaBar = False Application.ExecuteExcel4Macro "SHOW.TOOLBAR(""Ribbon"",False)" Next wrksh Next wrkbk prev.activate Application.ErrorCheckingOptions.BackgroundChecking = False Application.Worksheets("DASHBOARD").ScrollArea = "A1:G37" Worksheets("DASHBOARD").Activate 27 End Sub

28 Security Restrict User from Creating New WorkSheets Private Sub Workbook_NewSheet(ByVal Sh As Object) With Application Application.ScreenUpdating = False Application.DisplayAlerts = False Sh.Delete Application.DisplayAlerts = True Application.ScreenUpdating = True End With MsgBox "Not Authorized to create new sheets", vbexclamation, "FYI" End Sub 28

29 Security Reverts Excel Functionality Private Sub Workbook_BeforeClose(Cancel As Boolean) ActiveWindow.DisplayHeadings = True Application.DisplayFormulaBar = True Application.ExecuteExcel4Macro "SHOW.TOOLBAR(""Ribbon"",True)" Application.ErrorCheckingOptions.BackgroundChecking = True ActiveWorkbook.Saved = True MsgBox "Click OK to continue closing this file. Changes will not be saved." ActiveWorkbook.Saved = True End Sub 29

30 Security Protect Sheets 30

31 Security Protect Sheets

32 Questions? Thank you! 32