Discover dashboard essentials: emphasize sales, gross profit, and gross margin; visualize with charts, slice data across categories, and keep it dynamic, interactive, and easy to drill into.

Explore a case study in Excel dashboards and Power BI, covering monthly sales by category, COGS and gross profit, sales forecasts from 2018, and preparing data from databases for dashboards.

Name every data column in Excel as named ranges (sale_country_zip, sale_month, sale_year, sale_quarter) to keep formulas stable and enable dynamic Power BI dashboards.

Create KPI squares at the dashboard top using data from the dashboard data tab with sumifs; compare 2018 to prior year and apply conditional formatting.

Fill in last quarter sales, gross profit, and gross profit margin using a two-criteria formula for 2018 Q4, and connect the results to the dashboard.

Apply conditional formatting to KPI squares, using green for positive values and red, with neutral zero. Build KPI cards and introduce a speedometer chart for the dashboard.

Learn to build a speedometer chart in Excel, from setting up a half-donut gauge to proportional scaling of current sales and forecast within a 180-degree arc.

Create a speedometer chart by merging charts in Excel, set the donut hole to 50%, add a pointer series on a secondary axis, and align segments with target and forecast.

Create a dynamic dashboard comparing sales and margins by category, showing prior year, current year, and percent change, using sumifs and linked data for categories like online courses, apparel.

Create a dynamic Excel chart using a form controls scroll bar, enabled via the developer tab, linking the scroll bar to a cell and mapping values to categories with VLOOKUP.

Build a dynamic area chart powered by a spin button, using sumifs and date-based monthly sales to update totals and chart titles in real time.

Calculate the net promoter score using countifs, identifying promoters (9–10) and detractors (0–6), and compute yearly percentages to build a dashboard.

Present insights to Bob the boss: 2018 sales, forecast variance, margins; propose removing grooming and supplies and adding a pie chart of rainbow unicorn courses, excursions, books, and apparel.

Download Power BI desktop on your computer, connect data sources locally, and build dashboards before uploading to an online platform to share or integrate with a website.

Power BI unlocks business intelligence by slicing and dicing data, creating interactive dashboards, and drilling down from yearly revenue to quarters and states.

Explore Power BI's data connections, import data from Excel and various databases, and visualize the results in the report view to build insightful dashboards.

Import and load data from an Excel file into Power BI, select worksheets and named ranges like geography, monthly report, product sales figures, and survey results.

connect data sources in Power BI by building relationships with unique identifiers like country zip and product id, enabling date and category analysis; refresh ensures new data is imported.

Create and customize visualizations in Power BI, starting with a clustered column chart to display revenue by year and category, then drill into quarter and month for deeper insights.

Create a Power BI pie chart to visualize revenue by category, drag category to the legend, and explore interactive filtering across linked charts.

Build a clustered bar chart showing units sold by course to identify the most popular offerings. Add a horizontal year slicer to filter and compare performance across years.

Learn to edit slicer interactions to control which charts respond, turning off cross-chart filtering. Connect data across worksheets to drive sales visuals by state.

Create a scatter plot in Excel with sales on the x-axis, cost of goods sold on the y-axis, and category legend; size reflects sales, year play axis animates trends.

Create funnel charts to compare gross profit and sales over the years by dragging values and grouping by year, then interpret year-over-year changes to assess margins.

Create KPI squares to visualize an indicator with target goals and trend analysis by year, using cost of goods sold data, sales forecasts, and gross profit, color-coded to show performance.

Create a combo chart in Power BI to visualize gross profit margin over time, compare margins by category, and prepare a shareable dashboard for web.

Upload your desktop Power BI visuals to the cloud, assemble a single dashboard by pinning reports and visuals, and share insights via the Power BI web and mobile views.

Finish this course with confidence in the dashboard and data analytics foundations, replay videos, and use free resources to pair with the data analytics course.