Excel Dashboard - How was this done ?

[syswizard]

http://www.ozgrid.com/charts/dashboard-reports-color.htm

Before I give-up and shell out the bucks for this utility,
can any experts take a guess as to HOW exactly
these mini-charts are being done in Excel with VBA ?

The options I've come up with so far:
- Charts within Forms
- embedded shape objects
- ActiveX component

The author goes on to mention some Camera tool or something here ?
http://www.exceluser.com/catalog/ab/landbook1.htm

Also, what about these little guys ?
http://www.ozgrid.com/charts/micro-charts.htm
Are they "live" charts or just chart images I wonder ?

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

http://www.exceluser.com/catalog/landdash3.htm
says they are just small charts.


Before I started spending money, I would take a look here:

John Peltier
http://peltiertech.com/

and here:
Tushar Mehta
http://www.tushar-mehta.com/excel/

See what you can do with charts.

 

[syswizard]

http://www.exceluser.com/catalog/landdash3.htm
says they are just small charts.

Before I started spending money, I would take a look here:

John Peltierhttp://peltiertech.com/

and here:
Tushar Mehtahttp://www.tushar-mehta.com/excel/

See what you can do with charts.

Wow, thanks for those outstanding links Tom....I'll be reviewing them
tomorrow.

 

[Jon Peltier]

As Tom points out, they are regular Excel charts. In some cases, the Camera
tool (built into Excel, though sometimes difficult to find) is used to put
charts and tables into the desired arrangement for the report.

The e-book goes into detail not only describing how to make the charts and
use the camera tool, but also how to design a reporting system of workbooks
that enables easy updating of the dashboard workbook at regular intervals
(weekly or monthly) as the data in the linked sources changes.

You can probably find more details about the dashboards on the ExcelUser.com
site.

The MicroCharts (BonaVista, www.bonavistasystems.com) and SparkMaker
(Bissantz, www.bissantz.de) create live charts in Excel cells using
specially designed fonts. OzGrid doesn't do you any favors by not
prominently posting the web sites of the software creators, so you can learn
more about their products. I've dabbled with these products, and while they
seem promising, they are not sufficiently Excel-like to feel like a natural
extension of Excel. The use of fonts is both clever and problematic, and
their construction within .Net has led to problems with other VBA use, at
least on my machine.

Fernando Cinquegrani has very recently* shown how to use regular Excel
charts, in conjunction with the Camera tool, to get very similar sparkline
charts:
http://www.prodomosua.eu/zips/sparklines.xls

*one day before it appeared as a comment at the end of Edward Tufte's page
describing sparklines:
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001OR&topic_id=1

- Jon

 

[syswizard]

As Tom points out, they are regular Excel charts. In some cases, the Camera
tool (built into Excel, though sometimes difficult to find) is used to put
charts and tables into the desired arrangement for the report.

The e-book goes into detail not only describing how to make the charts and
use the camera tool, but also how to design a reporting system of workbooks
that enables easy updating of the dashboard workbook at regular intervals
(weekly or monthly) as the data in the linked sources changes.

You can probably find more details about the dashboards on the ExcelUser.com
site.

The MicroCharts (BonaVista,www.bonavistasystems.com) and SparkMaker
(Bissantz,www.bissantz.de) create live charts in Excel cells using
specially designed fonts. OzGrid doesn't do you any favors by not
prominently posting the web sites of the software creators, so you can learn
more about their products. I've dabbled with these products, and while they
seem promising, they are not sufficiently Excel-like to feel like a natural
extension of Excel. The use of fonts is both clever and problematic, and
their construction within .Net has led to problems with other VBA use, at
least on my machine.

Fernando Cinquegrani has very recently* shown how to use regular Excel
charts, in conjunction with the Camera tool, to get very similar sparkline
charts:
http://www.prodomosua.eu/zips/sparklines.xls

*one day before it appeared as a comment at the end of Edward Tufte's page
describing sparklines:
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001OR&top...

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutionshttp://PeltierTech.com
_______










- Show quoted text -

Thanks much to Jon and Tom. Wow, this forum appears to be one of the
best for Excel.