Welcome to week six, and Welcome, Nikki.

Hi, Prashan. Great to be here.

It's the last week of the course,

and it's the last week of the entire specialization.

It's kind of sad and exciting at the same time.

It's that great journey that everyone's been on, isn't it Nikki?

It really is. And we've covered a huge amount of ground,

whether you started from zero in

our Excel Essentials course or you've come on later just to consolidate the skill set,

I'm sure everyone is going away with a lot of new additions to the Excel tool set.

Now the Excel tool set employs,

time and time again are telling us,

that that's the key thing that they want their employees to have.

So what exactly are we focusing on this week?

Well this week, we've saved the best for last.

We're going to look at how we can design professional dashboards.

Dashboards, these become popular in recent times.

Why exactly are they becoming popular?

Well, because a dashboard contains many visual elements,

its helps our brain more readily access

that information and that helps us make those critical decisions a lot more quickly.

So where can we start when it comes to constructing a dashboard in Excel?

Well, we're going to start at the beginning.

So the first thing we have to know is,

what is the purpose of a dashboard?

What answers do our stakeholders or end users actually need to know,

and what are the key metrics they need to see?

Once we've established that,

we're going to get into laying out our dashboard and this is really important.

We want it to basically fit on a single page,

and then it's important that we segment the data,

so divided up into logical areas that are easy to read.

And when we've got an interactive dashboard,

we want to make sure that the user is going to change something,

it's clear which areas of the dashboard will be impacted by that change.

So, step one, get the layout right.

So once you get the lay out right,

we need to get the data in there,

which means we need to prepare the data.

So how can we get started on preparing the data?

Yeah. Good question. So, we're going to draw on what we learned in week one,

and we want to get that clear separation of our inputs,

our calculations, and then of course,

our presentation which in this case is our dashboard.

So once we've got a separate area where we're going to do our calculations setup,

we're going to again think about those key principles.

We need our formulas to be robust,

we need them to be responsive,

and of course, we need them to be accurate.

So, we're going to draw on all the techniques we've been using, tables, names, ranges,

good formulas, well-constructed, and of course, pivot tables,

to then create the data that we're going to use in our dashboard.

So after this, we can start constructing our dashboards then?

Absolutely.

And that's what we'll focus on for the rest of the week.

We're going to keep in mind that what we're trying

to do is give key metrics to our users.

So we need to make sure we're answering

the business questions but we're going to look at how we can

use Excel tools to construct the visual elements that will give them the answers.

We're going to make sure that we're choosing the right chart, if we're using a chart.

But we'll also, look at how we can use other tools like, slicers, drop-down lists,

or even a form control to create a scrollable table which is quite exciting,

and we'll even look at how we can create a gauge chart.

So some fairly exciting features,

but at the end of the day,

we want a nice clean dashboard that will answer our stakeholders' questions.

Sounds like an exciting last week.

Thank you, Nikki. Now, we've got some exciting practice videos coming up for you.

Download the Excel workbook,

so that you can work alongside us step by step and build

some amazing interactive and informative dashboards.

We've got quizzes that you can check out,

so that you can test your knowledge,

and make sure you check out this week's practice challenge,

as well as the tool box and the great ninja tip we have for you.

Now, it's over to you.

Week 6 Discussion

Excel Skills for Business: Advanced

Meet the Instructors