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Bullet Chart in Excel

By Madhuri ThakurMadhuri Thakur

Bullet Chart in Excel

Excel Bullet Chart (Table of Contents)

  • Introduction to Excel Bullet Chart
  • How to Create Bullet Chart in Excel?

Introduction to Excel Bullet Chart

We all have seen dashboards at some point in time. Whether in our office or while working for different clients with different technologies. We always come up with dashboards. The dashboard’s main challenge is that we have limited space to present all our analytical insights (maybe only one page sometimes). Most of the dashboards consist of visuals that can be used for giving a simple and crisp idea about things to the user. If you have seen any dashboards, you must be agreeing with the statement, “Visuals consume a lot of space as well”. Because of this issue, we have to be very smart while choosing the visuals for the dashboard. Choosing the right, crisp, and compact visual is a need of the dashboard, and this is where bullet charts have the upper hand over other visuals.

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Bullet Chart was introduced towards this world by one of the dashboard expert, Stephan few, and since its inclusion, it is one of the widely used charts when you have to measure performance over the target. This chart can be used as a KPI speedometer under Dashboard and can compare all the necessary KPI values against the target value in a crisp solo chart that consumes space very lesser than the other charts.

We will see through an example of how to create a bullet chart in Excel.

How to Create Bullet Chart in Excel?

Let’s understand how to Create Bullet Chart in Excel with Some Steps. Suppose we have a data of Employee Performance as shown in the screenshot below:

You can download this Bullet Chart Excel Template here – Bullet Chart Excel Template

Bullet Chart in excel 1-1

We have segregated the employee performance under four categories, namely Poor, Fair, Good and Excellent. Out of all the employee we have, 55% employee have been performing Poorly, 15% is fair in performance, 20% performing Good and 10% is the Excellent performers. The actual performance value for one particular employee is 72%, and Target Value for Employee Performance is 95%, which management expects to achieve.

Let’s use this information to create a decent bullet chart under Excel.

Bullet Chart in excel 1-2

There is no direct inclusion of Bullet Chart under Excel, and hence we need to do some modifications to the general bar chart which we create. Follow the steps below:

Step 1: Select Data from A1:B7 and click on the Insert tab on the Excel ribbon. Navigate towards the Charts group inside the Insert menu.

Bullet Chart in excel 1-3

Step 2: Inside the Charts group, select the Insert Column or Bar Chart dropdown and select the Stacked Column Chart under the 2D-Column Charts section.

Bullet Chart in excel 1-4

You should see a column chart as shown in the screenshot below:

Bullet Chart in excel 1-5

We can clearly see that the chart is plotted with each category as a separate data point. We don’t want it in that way. We wanted those categories to be stacked within each other. Therefore, we will follow the step below to make it a stacked bar chart.

Step 3: Click on the Chart. As soon as you click on it, you will get new tabs active on the Excel ribbon named Design and Format. Navigate to the Design tab and under Data Group, click on Switch Row/Column option.

Chart Design-Switch Row column

This will switch the data rows and columns, and the graph layout will look like the one below:

employee performance

Step 4: Now, right-click on the bar colored in green which is associated with the Target Value and select the Change Series Chart Type… option. It will open up a change chart type window.

Change Series Chart Type

Step 5: Change the Chart Type for Target Value as Stacked Line with Market and tick the Secondary Axis option.

Target Value

Now you can see instead of a bar; you have a green dot that represents the Target Value.

 

Target Value Dot

Step 6: Now, click on the bar representing Average Value and right-click on it to select the Change Series Chart Type… option.

Bullet Chart in excel 1-7

Step 7: On the Change Chart Type window, just check the Secondary Axis box for the Actual Value series as shown below:

Bullet Chart in excel 1-8

You should now see a chart as in the below screenshot:

Bullet Chart in excel 1-9

Step 8: Right-click on the blue bar representing the Actual Value series and select the Format Data Series option.

Format Data Series - Bullet Chart

Step 9: Under the Format Data Series window that pops up at the rightmost corner of the Excel sheet, change the Gap Width to its maximum value (i.e. 500).

Format Data Series-Bullet Chart

You will see that the Actual Value Series is overlapped under the entire Stacked bar chart as shown below:

Bullet Chart in Excel 1-10

Step 10: Now, select the Target Value dot and right-click on it to select the Format Data Series option.

Format Data Series-Bullet Chart 1

Step 11: In the Format Data Series pane that opens up at the rightmost corner, click on Fill & Line > Marker > Marker Options.

Format Data Series-Bullet Chart 2

Step 12: Change the Marker Option as Built-in and inside it, change the Type as dash from the dropdown and make the size as 20.

Format Data Series - Bullet Chart 1

Step 13: Navigate towards the Fill section and change the color to Red instead of Green.

format data Series-Solid Fill

Step 14: Under the Border section, change the border as No Line instead of the preselected called Automatic.

Border-No line

I will change the color for each bar to make it look nicer and vibrant in this case. The final bullet chart should look like the one below:

employee performance 1

You can add the Chart Title for this chart to make it look nicer. This is by far the Single -KPI bullet chart. Using the same technique, you also can produce a Multi-KPI bullet chart and make it a permanent member of your dashboard instead of the Speedometer that consumes a lot of space. Just keep an eye on the formatting of the bullets (bars within). We need to have uniformity throughout the chart for different KPI parameters.

This article ends here and lets us wrap the things for this article with some points to be remembered associated with bullet charts.

Things to Remember About Excel Bullet Chart

  • Bullet chart is not already present under Microsoft Excel and is just a need of the hour due to which it came in the picture.
  • We need to combine multiple charts (Ex. Stacked Bar Chart, Marker and Line Chart) together in order to get the expected bullet chart done.
  • This chart is a need of hour chart. Since the conventional speedometers consume a lot of space while creating a dashboard, to reduce that space and make the dashboard more compact, this chart was introduced.

Recommended Articles

This is a guide to Bullet Chart in Excel. Here we discuss How to use Bullet Chart in Excel along with practical examples and a downloadable excel template. You can also go through our other suggested articles –

  1. Box Plot in Excel
  2. Surface Charts in Excel
  3. Comparison Chart in Excel
  4. Thermometer Chart in Excel
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Download Bullet Chart Excel Template

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डाउनलोड Bullet Chart Excel Template

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