Ravindra BagaleCourses & study guides

13. Excel Dashboards

13.5 Charts for the Dashboard

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Steps in Excel

  1. Click inside pvtTrend › PivotTable Analyze › Tools › PivotChart › Line. Cut (Ctrl + X) the chart and paste it on the Dashboard sheet.
  2. Right-click any field button on the chart › Hide All Field Buttons on Chart – slicers will do the filtering.
  3. From pvtCity insert a Clustered Bar (sorted largest on top: sort the pivot ascending, or tick Categories in reverse order on the axis).
  4. From pvtCategory insert a Doughnut or a Bar (bar is easier to read when there are more than 4–5 categories – Module 8.12).
  5. From pvtPlatform insert a 100% Stacked Bar or a small doughnut (Blinkit vs Amazon Now share).
  6. For every chart: short title that states the insight ("Pune gives 37% of sales"), delete gridlines or make them light grey, add data labels only where needed, use one highlight colour.
  7. Align charts: select several › Shape Format › Arrange › Align › Align Top and Distribute Horizontally. Hold Alt while dragging to snap to cell borders.

Worked example – which chart for which question.

Question Pivot Chart Why
Are sales rising through the month? (Holi spike on 14-03-2026) pvtTrend Line Trend over time
Which city sells most? pvtCity Bar, sorted Easy ranking of 6 names
Which category drives sales? pvtCategory Bar Many categories
Blinkit vs Amazon Now share pvtPlatform Doughnut (2 slices) Part-of-whole, few parts

Pune's share = 18,42,500 ÷ 49,50,000 = 37.2%.

Ravindra Bagale's Tip

Many students use 3D pies, shadows and every colour on a dashboard – it looks "colourful" but nothing makes sense. Use one highlight colour (our green) and grey for the rest, and write the insight in the chart title ("Pune gives 37% of sales"), not just "Sales by City". Hide the field buttons on the Pivot Chart, otherwise the dashboard looks cluttered.

Practice task

Create the four charts from the table above, place them in a 2 × 2 grid on the Dashboard sheet, align them with the Align tools and give each chart an insight title.