Data Visualization in Excel

In an age now driven by "big data", we need to cut through the noise and present key information in a way that can be quickly consumed and acted upon making data visualization an increasingly important skill. Visualizations need to not only present data in an easy to understand and attractive way, but they must also provide context for the data, tell a story, achieving that fine balance between form and function. Excel has many rivals in this space, but it is still an excellent choice, particularly if it's where your data resides. It offers a wealth of tools for creating visualizations other than charts and the chart options available are constantly increasing and improving, so the newer versions now include waterfall charts, sunburst diagrams and even map charts. But what sets Excel apart is its flexibility, it gives us total creative control over our designs so if needed we could produce our own animated custom chart to tell the right story for our data. Over five weeks we will explore Excel's rich selection of visualization tools using practical case studies as seen through the eyes of Rohan, an environmental analyst. Rohan is required to produce visualizations that will show trends, forecasts, breakdowns and comparisons for a large variety of environmental data sets. As well as utilising the usual chart types he wants to use conditional formats, sparklines, specialised charts and even create his own animated charts and infographics. In some cases, he will also need to prepare the data using pivot tables to drill down and answer very specific questions. We are going to help him achieve all this and present our finished visualizations in attractive reports and dashboards that use tools like slicers and macros for automation and interactivity. These are the topics we will cover: Week 1: Dynamic visualizations with conditional formatting, custom number formatting, sparklines and macros Week 2: Charting techniques for telling the right story Week 3: Creating spe