5.3 Building a dashboard
A single screen answers the five questions your reader always asks.
Before:03. Excel — AnalysisUnlocks:13. Portfolio & Certification
A dashboard is one screen that answers the reader's five standing questions, and this topic is where charts, pivots and slicers get assembled into one. It sits near the end of the Excel arc because it draws on nearly everything earlier. The design work starts before the layout: decide the five questions first, then build only what answers them. The structural habit taught here — separate sheets for data, calculation and presentation — is what keeps a dashboard maintainable, and the common confusion is treating a dashboard as a place to show everything rather than a place to answer things.
Work through these
Deciding the five questions before laying anything out
A dashboard is defined by the questions it answers, and deciding those before any layout begins is what stops it becoming a wall of charts. Five is a deliberate limit.
Layout, grid alignment and a restrained palette
Alignment to a consistent grid and a small palette are what make a screen look designed rather than assembled. Neither requires design training.
Slicers and timelines driving several charts at once
One set of controls driving every chart is what makes a dashboard feel like a single instrument. Without it, the reader has to make the same selection several times.
Separating data, calculation and presentation sheets
Keeping the raw data, the calculations and the presentation on separate sheets means each can change without breaking the others. It is the structural habit that makes a dashboard maintainable.
Practice file
- xl-07-dashboard-starter.xlsx
Clean data plus an empty dashboard sheet with the five questions written on it.
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