Excel KPI Dashboard (Table of Contents)
Introduction to KPI Dashboard in Excel
Key Performance Indicator, a.k.a. KPI dashboard, is one of the versatile dashboards which can be used every now and then as per business requirements. It is most of the time a graphical representation of different business processes that have progressed along with some already set (predefined) measures for the goal achievement. The KPI dashboard provides the nicest view of KPI’s and their comparison over other KPI’s. Those are nothing but the visual measures, which allows you to quickly check whether the current business values are going as expected or not that too in the easiest way (just looking at the graph) without checking a bunch of data. In this article, we are going to see some KPI dashboards and how to make such from scratch.
How to Create KPI Dashboard in Excel?
Let’s understand how to create the KPI Dashboard in Excel with some examples.
Example #1 – KPI Dashboard in Excel using PowerPivot
PowerPivot is not new to excel users. You can develop many fancy reports using this tool from excel without taking any help from IT people. Moreover, KPI is a new addition to PowerPivot, which allows you to check the performance in a jiffy though you have millions of rows. We will see in this example how to create a simple KPI using PowerPivot.
First thing first, you have to enable Power Pivot in your excel.
Step 1: Open an Excel file. Click on the File tab on the uppermost ribbon. Go to Options.
Step 2: Under Options > Click on Add-ins. You’ll be able to see the screen as shown below.
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Step 3: Select COM Add-ins under the Manage section dropdown and click on the Go button.
Step 4: As soon as you hit the Go button, the COM Add-ins dialog box will pop up. Select Microsoft Power Pivot for Excel from the list of add-ins and click OK.
After enabling this PowerPivot add-in, you should be able to see the PowerPivot option tab on the topmost panel ribbon in your excel.
Step 5: Now, the actual work begins. Under the PowerPivot tab in your excel file, click on Manage.
Step 6: It should open a new tab named Power Pivot for Excel. There are different ways to import data under PowerPivot. You can click the Database tab if you want to add data from SQL Server, Access. However, if you have an excel file or text file or some data files other than SQL and Access, please click on From Other Sources tab.
Step 7: Once you click on the “From Other Sources” tab, a new window named Table Import Wizard will pop up. There you can see a lot of options from where you can import the data to PowerPivot. Select the Excel file, then click on the Next button to proceed further.
Step 8: Browse the path on where your excel data file is stored and click the Next button to finish the Import.
Step 9: Click on the Finish button once the data table is loaded into PowerPivot.
Step 10: After a successful import, you will be able to see the data as below.
Step 11: Now, in order to create a KPI report, we need to slice and dice our data under the pivot table. Click on the Pivot Table tab under PowerPivot. Once you click it, a new window named Create PivotTable will appear in which you have to select the data from PowerPivot, and it asks you whether you want a pivot table under a new sheet or on the same sheet. I will prefer to go with the same sheet and then will provide the range on which the pivot table should be added. Click OK once done.
Step 12: Select the data under rows, columns, and values, as shown below.
Here we have selected data in the following order:
Rows: Accounting Date Year & Quarter
Values: Sum of Sales & Margin
Step 13: Now, we are going to add a calculated column in the pivot. Select Measures under excel sheet. Click on New Measures.
A new window called Measure will pop up. It will allow you to formulate a measure and add it under your pivot table created.
Step 14: Under ” Measure name:”, add a name for your measure (For, e.g. Margin%). If you want to add a description for the same, you can add it there as well under the Description section. Under the Formula section, add the formula =[Sum of Margin]/[Sum of Sales] as shown below. It will calculate the Margin% for you. See the screenshot below.
Here, we have created a new calculated column named Margin%, which can be formulated as the ratio of two columns, Sum of Margin and Sum of Sales. Once you are done with this step, click on the OK button, and you will be able to see a new calculated column named Margin% under the pivot table.
Step 15: Select the entire column, Margin %, and convert it to % using number formatting.
Step 16: Now our data is ready for KPI’s to be added. Click on the KPIs tab as shown in the figure. Select the New KPI option.
A KPI window will pop up, as shown below. It has some by default values, which we are going to change.
Step 17: In this window, define an Absolute Value for the target as 1. We are doing this because we don’t have any other target values/measures defined as separately to have a comparison with actual values of Margin %.
Step 18: In this step, define the Status Threshold value. It is defined in decimal format. Like 40% will be given as 0.40. Change the Status Threshold values as shown in the screenshot below.
Step 19: Now, we can select icon style as well (These are the KPI Icons). I will opt out of the second style. As shown below.
Step 20: Click on the OK button once you are done with setting the KPI parameters and customization.
Tada, your KPI Dashboard is ready and will be looking as shown in the screenshot below.
Things to Remember About KPI Dashboard in Excel
- You always need to assign data to PowerPivot so that it can be used for the creation of the KPI Dashboard.
- Every time, you need to add a pivot once the data is imported into PowerPivot so that it can be used for KPI Dashboard creation.
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