view easily view several charts B u s i n e s s F i n a n c e

Remember that for this project, you will need to create a dashboard that gives the user a snapshot of how well the organization is doing. Dashboards allow users to view easily view several charts or other visual indicators on one page or screen. Dashboard examples are included at the end of this document. You will also want to view the video tutorial on dashboards. See details of the dashboard project here.

For this assignment, you are to create a plan for your dashboard. The purpose of the plan is to ensure you are on track with a good idea of what you want to do with the data. You do not need to create any charts at this point, only describe in words the following points:

What dataset are you going to use (you must select one of the datasets provided to you in Module 14 in the project description)

What questions do you want the dashboard to answer?

What charts/visualizations will fit the data and help answer your questions?

A good start to a dashboard plan is, “I will focus on the revenues and expenses of this company and how they track over time and among the regions. There are three questions I would like this dashboard to address. The first is, how do the differences between revenues and expenses compare over time? To answer this question, I will use a line chart to graph the data…”

Your plan should be between 250 and 500 words. Be complete, but be direct.

Dashboard Details:

You should build your dashboard on the first sheet and name it appropriately. Be creative and professional. Use charts that best represent the chosen data. Depending on how you create them, you should aim for between 6 and 8 charts for your dashboard. This can vary based on other visualizations you include, such as small tables with conditional formatting and sparklines. The data for the dashboard is located on sheet 2 of the project file.

You are given several different types of data. You should not only use the raw data that’s given to you, but you should also use the functions you learned in class to create more meaningful transformations of the data. To refresh your memory, these functions include (but are not limited to) SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, STDEV, etc. For example, you could calculate percent changes in sales for each month, then create a mini table of the results, using either conditional formatting or sparklines to help visualize the data.