How do you share your Excel Dashboard with users?

Now that you have built the dashboard, you can share the dashboard in multiple ways.

” Create a PDF output of the dashboard and send as email attachment.

Click on the PDF icon on the toolbar as shown below and it will instantly create a PDF output

PDF output

” Create Static HTML output. Click on the HTML icon on the toolbar. This option creates a static html page that you can put in on the web. Users cannot interact with the dashboard. It is just a snapshot image of the dashboard at the time the output was generated. It does not refresh automatically. You will need to regerate the output again when the data is refreshed.

” Desktop Sharing. You can put the dashboard definition file (icv) on a file share directory and other users can view the dashboard through the Dashboard viewer. You may need separate license for dashboard viewers for desktop.

Go to Menu Create ‘ Publish to web and it will generate a file that you can put it where the dashboard web server is and it will render the output. The look and feel is different with this option

The web version is using a flash charting engine to the desktop Java chart engine.
Details of converting the desktop to web version are not covered in the document. Please refer online at any of our websites for more details

You can download the complete tutorial as PDF
” Web Sharing: In this option, you can publish the dashboard to web and the dashboard is available real time with all the dashboard parameters and refresh actions

Summary

We built the above dashboard completely from scratch.

• We defined Calculations
• We defined date hierarchies
• We built Date Filters
• We built Date Parameters
• We built Bar Charts
• We built Pie Charts
• We cleaned the dashboard layout

Next – Share Excel Dashboard with other Users

Finish the Dashboard Design and Development

By now, your dashboard is quite chaotic. You have objects all around your dashboard canvas with different sizes. We will start the process of finishing our design.

Before proceeding, we save a copy of the dashboard.

Navigate to menu File ‘ Save As

Give a name to the file so that you can identify the raw dashboard definition file.

Click on Save.

Next, go to menu File => Close All

Note that there are no dashboards to view.

If you need more backup copies to be created or create different versions of the same dashboard definition, then go to the File Explorer, select the file and type – Ctrl-C, and then Ctrl-V

Now, Click on the File ‘ Open
Select the file “Order Management Analytics.icv”

Note that we are not touching the – Initial Copy file.
Click on Open

Get rid of objects you don’t need
We don’t need the initial table portlet, so we will delete that.

Select the “Name” portlet and then click on the “Scissor’ icon on the toolbar

Click “Yes” to confirm.

Note, we created the backup copy of the dashboard so don’t worry if you mess up the dashboard. You can always go back to the original and start again.

Similarly remove all objects that you don’t need it.

Next – Excel Dashboard Tutorial – Arrange objects in sizing and alignment

Create Pie Chart

We will now create a pie chart by product name

It is nice to know that the revenue distribution is not dominated by a single product.

We can now change the “Category name parameter” to see the product distribution for other category

By Category = Beverages

Summary of steps so far
” Create a foundation table portlet (Qlet)
” Add Calculations and any derived columns
” Add Date hierarchy columns as needed
” Create Date parameters if needed
” Create drop down list of values as parameters
” Create charts using the base Qlet
” Delete the foundation portlet when not needed and you are done with the dashboard design
” Arrange the remaining portlets in desired format.

Once you are done with all the Qlets (query/table portlet) and Glets (graphic portlets), it is advisable to save the dashboard file, copy the file and work on the new file for finishing and polishing the dashboard.

Next – Excel Dashboard Tutorial – 9

You have your data in Excel, you build a dashboard in Excel Dashboard designer and you can share and distribute the dashboard as PDF or live dynamic dashboard using the “Dashboard Viewer”. This is all fine and perfect.

But how about this scenario, what if you could hit a button and publish the dashboard on your website or intranet or your local webserver?

This web based Excel dashboard is not just a static html page but a real dynamic dashboard. You can access the dashboard using a URL on your browser (Internet Explorer,Chrome, Firefox etc) and view it from any part of the world. It would be as dynamic as you see it when you are designing it in Excel Dashboard Software.

Sounds interesting? so watch out for our web based dashboarding solution for Excel which should be out in few days.

So why bother buying an ebook or a pdf tutorial which tells you how to build a dashboard in Excel when you can get the leading Dashboard software just for the same price and you easily deploy it on your website.