The challenge with merely presenting data as reports or business insights is that the users of such report do not get the story and intelligence behind the data. The next time you must present a report to management or the board, try one of these Excel techniques from Philip Gamey, Excel
Consultant:
1. Add calculated fields to the data. For example present dates of employee engagement in cell A2 (1/2/2012) as years worked in cell B2 (=DATEDIF(A2,NOW(),”y”))
2. Use averaging and distribution to show trend and comparisons by related items. Example; instead just sending the total amount spent on fuel till date, calculate monthly average and distribute cost by departments.
3. Add conditional formats to give additional meaning to numbers. To apply conditional formatting to your reports, go to Home Tab…Styles Group..Conditional Formatting Command and select Data Bars to show bars within the cells.
Attend our upcoming free video webinar for more tips and techniques on how to muscle your Excel skills for extensive data analysis and reports.
Should you need a copy of the Excel file we used for this mail, please request through mail.
