Alexander - Excel Dashboards and Reports

Excel Dashboards and Reports, 2nd Edition

by Michael Alexander and John Walkenbach

Excel Dashboards and Reports, 2nd Edition

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Copyright 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013934910

ISBN 978-1-118-49042-6 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-49043-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-49150-8 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-49141-6 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Authors

Mike Alexander is a Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD) and author of several books on advanced business analysis using Microsoft Access and Excel. He has more than 15 years experience consulting and developing Microsoft Office solutions. Michael has been named a Microsoft MVP for his ongoing contributions to the Excel community. In his spare time he runs a free tutorial site, www.datapigtechnologies.com, where he shares basic Access and Excel tips with the Office community.

John Walkenbach is a bestselling Excel author who has published more than 50 books on spreadsheets. He lives amid the saguaros, javelinas, rattlesnakes, bobcats, and gila monsters in southern Arizona but the critters are mostly scared away by his clawhammer banjo playing. For more information, Google him.

Dedication

This is dedicated to the fans of DataPigTechnologies.com... all twelve of you.

Michael Alexander

Authors Acknowledgments

My deepest thanks to Katie Mohr and Pat OBrien, for all the hours of work put into making this book as clear as it can be. Thanks also to the brilliant team of professionals who helped bring this book to fruition. Finally, a special thank you goes to my family for putting up with all the time spent away on this project.

Michael Alexander

Publishers Acknowledgments

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Acquisitions Editor: Katie Mohr

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Introduction

Business intelligence (BI) is what you get when you analyze raw data and turn that information into actionable knowledge. BI can help an organization identify cost-cutting opportunities, uncover new business opportunities, recognize changing business environments, identify data anomalies, and create widely accessible reports.

The BI concept is overtaking corporate executives who are eager to turn impossible amounts of data into useful knowledge. As a result of this trend, software vendors who focus on BI and build dashboards are coming out of the woodwork. Dashboards are ideal mechanisms for delivering this targeted information in a graphical, user-friendly form. New consulting firms touting their BI knowledge are popping up virtually every week. And even the traditional enterprise solution providers like Business Objects and SAP are offering new BI capabilities presented in a dashboard format.

So maybe youve been hit with dashboard fever? Or maybe youre holding this book because someone is asking you to create BI solutions (that is, create a dashboard) in Excel.