Expert Excel · Interactive lesson 8 of 12
Dashboard application design
A9 built one dashboard for one audience. A real deployment usually needs two views of the same model — an executive skim and an analyst's drill-down — sharing the same numbers but showing a different amount of them.
Screens shown: Excel for Microsoft 365 for Windows. Practice works in any browser.
Written tutorialBuilding Interactive Dashboards in ExcelSkill check
Try these first:
- Design two views of the same data for two different audiences.
- Build a control whose selected state is unmistakable.
- Report exceptions first — the rows that need attention, not every row.
- Design a print or presentation mode that hides the controls.
All familiar? Skip ahead to E9 — Controls, Testing & Audit Trails.
Concept teach
What you're learning
- Audience-specific views
- An executive view answers "are we on track" in one glance; an analyst view underneath answers "why" — same source data, deliberately different amounts shown.
- Control layout
- Filters and view-switchers live in one consistent place, styled distinctly from the data itself, so they're never mistaken for content.
- Clear selected state
- A viewer should know which filter is active without hovering or guessing — a filled toggle, not just a subtle shade change.
- Accessible colors
- Status shouldn't rely on red/green alone — roughly 1 in 12 men can't reliably tell them apart. Pair color with an icon, label, or shape.
- Exception-first reporting
- Lead with what's off-target, not a full table a reader has to scan themselves — the rows demanding attention belong at the top, not buried in row 40.
- Drill paths
- Click a KPI tile or chart segment and see the rows behind that number — a defined path from summary to detail, not a dead end.
- Print & presentation modes
- Filters and interactive controls that make sense on screen are clutter on a printed page or a screen-shared slide — hide them deliberately for that mode.
Where to find it in Excel
Insert›Slicer · Timeline›Page Layout › Print Area
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Executive view | |||||||
| 2 | Exceptions first | |||||||
| 3 | South · Returns 8.2% | |||||||
| 4 | West · Late orders 14 | |||||||
| 5 | ||||||||
| 6 | ||||||||
| 7 | ||||||||
| 8 | ||||||||
| 9 | ||||||||
| 10 |
Swipe sideways to see the whole window.
- 1One sheet per audience: Executive, Analyst, plus the data.
- 2Insert › Slicer; Slicer › Report Connections links one slicer to several PivotTables.
- 3Insert › Timeline for date controls.
- 4The selected state should be obvious at a glance.
- 5Page Layout › Print Area and Print Titles set up the print version.
Rendered view of Excel for Microsoft 365 (Windows). Ribbon layout can differ slightly on Mac, Excel for the web or a narrow window.
Guided build
Switch between the executive view and the analyst view of the same regional sales data, then drill into an exception.
Independent extension
Design two views of one dashboard
Take a dashboard you've built or use, and design a second view for a different audience — an executive summary if it's currently analyst-detail, or the reverse. Add one exception-first callout, one control with an unmistakable selected state, and a print mode that hides the interactive controls.
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