Original subtitles

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By this time, you've gone through your checklist and you have a good idea about the dashboard that you're

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going to implement.

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The good thing about the exercise is that it makes you and your colleagues think about the main parameters

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that are important for your business.

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And as a result, it's going to help everyone understand the business better.

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Your next steps:

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Draw a draft on a piece of paper because then, you're also going to see what needs to be where and how

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you're going to organize it. It can be majorly ugly.

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It really doesn't matter. As long as it helps you visualize it to an extent,

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it's good enough.

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Next one, get inspired. Look for dashboards on the internet but don't put Excel dashboards in the search

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field. Instead, search for terms like professional dashboards, KPI dashboards, just anything without the

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word "Excel" in there,

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because this way is going to help you think outside the box.

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I like to get inspired by other designs and then I try to find ways to get it done in Excel. If I like

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something,

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I take a screenshot and then I collect the screenshots in a Word document. Next, for each part of the

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dashboard,

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do you have the required parameters in your checklist?

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Is it part of your raw data?

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Are you missing anything?

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For example, you'd like to show a trend but you're only retrieving data for the current month.

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Make sure that nothing is missing there.

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Next is that for each section of the dashboard, which Excel functions could you use to prepare the data

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for it?

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Can you picture it in your head how the data is going to flow?

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Now we come to the most difficult part for me and it's to get started.

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I'm sure I'm not alone here but whenever I come to the struggle of like, should I work in the calculations first

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or should I work in the dashboard? Should I work on the formatting?

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Where should I start?

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This is what I do.

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I time myself.

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Then I go to the calculations page.

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At this point, it's just the blank sheet.

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And then I put in sample numbers manually and then I put in the formulas to bring the data over from

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the raw data table. And then I put in a chart or a table on the dashboard page.

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But what I have to remind myself not to touch is the formatting.

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Just leave that to the middle or to the end but never to the beginning because otherwise, you're just

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going to end up procrastinating the whole process.

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When I time myself, I say "Ok, for the next two hours, I'm going to be working on this and that's it."

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And when I start, I just can't stop anymore.

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Getting started is the hardest part.

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And I do suggest that you start from a blank sheet.

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Don't take over an old report and adjust it, really start from scratch. Start clean. Because this way,

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you make sure that there aren't any hidden names in there, any formulas, any excessive formatting and

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all that stuff in there. You are going to be in full control. All the while you're doing this, document

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your steps and also document your thoughts.

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This was your checklist for your next steps. In the next lectures,

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I'm going to give you some timesaving tips and also give you a quick overview of the optimal setup

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of your spreadsheet to create your great dashboard on.