Maximize Excel: Advanced Dashboard Techniques

CPE Credit: 2 hours

In this presentation author and Excel expert David Ringstrom, CPA, presents ways to create interactive summary reports, often known as dashboards, without using PivotTables. David will show how dynamic array functions in Excel 2021 and Excel for Microsoft 365 can be used to create reports that update in real time without needing to be refreshed in the fashion that PivotTables require. You'll also see how to create interactive charts, and contrast the Custom Views and Sheet Views features.

David is the author of “Exploring Microsoft Excel's Hidden Treasures: Turbocharge your Excel proficiency with expert tips, automation techniques, and overlooked features”. He demonstrates every technique at least twice: first, on a PowerPoint slide with numbered steps, and second, in the subscription-based Excel for Microsoft 365. David draws your attention to any differences in Excel 2021, 2019 or 2016 during the presentation and in his detailed handouts. The handouts include an Excel workbook with most of the examples he uses during his demonstrations.

Excel for Microsoft 365 is a subscription-based product that receives periodic feature updates. Conversely, perpetually licensed versions have year numbers in their names and do not receive any feature updates.

Who should attend:

Professionals seeking to use Microsoft Excel to create self-updating and interactive reports.

Topics typically covered:

• Keep or remove rows from the start or end of an array with the TAKE and DROP functions.

• Identifying the feature conflict that arises when you utilize tables within Excel workbooks.

• Streamlining the filtering of lists using the Slicer feature with tables.

• Creating self-updating chart titles that change automatically as you filter or slice data related to the chart.

• Displaying subsets of data dynamically by way of the new FILTER worksheet function.

• Utilizing Sheet View for workbooks saved to OneDrive or SharePoint in Excel 2021 and later.

• Using linked pictures as a navigation tool to return to the source PivotTable.

• Creating an in-cell list by way of Excel’s Data Validation feature.

• Understanding the conflict that a linked picture overlaying a slicer can pose.

• Using the Group command to interactively hide/unhide columns (and/or rows) within Excel worksheets.

• Streamlining Custom Views by adding a drop-down list to Excel's Quick Access Toolbar.

• Diagnosing the new #CALC error that can arise within improperly crafted dynamic array formulas.

Learning objectives:

• Recognize which version(s) of Excel offer the FILTER function.

• Identify the limitations of the Sheet View feature.

• Identify the command that provides the best way to eliminate compatiblity mode for an Excel workbook.