Large corporations like IBM and Oracle are using Excel dashboards and reports as a Business
Intelligence tool and many other smaller businesses are looking to these tools in order to cut
costs for budgetary reasons. An effective analyst not only has to have the technical skills to
use Excel in a productive manner but must be able to synthesize data into a story and then
present that story in the most impactful way. Microsoft shows its recognition of this with
Excel. In Excel there is a major focus on business intelligence and visualization. Data
Visualization with Excel Dashboards and Reports fills the gap between handling data and
synthesizing data into meaningful reports. This title will show readers how to think about
their data in ways other than columns and rows. Most Excel books do a nice job discussing the
individual functions and tools that can be used to create an Excel Report. Titles on Excel
charts Excel pivot tables and other books that focus on Tips and Tricks are useful in their
own right however they don't hit the mark for most data analysts. The primary reason these
titles miss the mark is they are too focused on the mechanical aspects of building a chart
creating a pivot table or other functionality. They don't offer these topics in the broader
picture by showing how to present and report data in the most effective way. What are the most
meaningful ways to show trending? How do you show relationships in data? When is showing
variances more valuable than showing actual data values? How do you deal with outliers? How do
you bucket data in the most meaningful way? How do you show impossible amounts of data without
inundating your audience? In Data Visualization with Excel Reports and Dashboards readers will
get answers to all of these questions. Part technical manual part analytical guidebook this
title will help Excel users go from reporting data with simple tables full of dull numbers to
creating hi-impact reports and dashboards that will wow management both visually and
substantively. This book offers a comprehensive review of a wide array of technical and
analytical concepts that will help users create meaningful reports and dashboards. After
reading this book the reader will be able to: * Analyze large amounts of data and report their
data in a meaningful way * Get better visibility into data from different perspectives *
Quickly slice data into various views on the fly * Automate redundant reporting and analyses *
Create impressive dashboards and What-If analyses * Understand the fundamentals of effective
visualization * Visualize performance comparisons * Visualize changes and trends over time
