Building a Simple Dashboard

A dashboard is one screen that shows the most important numbers at a glance — useful for reporting to a manager, a board, or a donor without making them read a raw spreadsheet.

• Combine 2-4 PivotCharts or summary tables on a single sheet.
• Use Conditional Formatting (Home → Conditional Formatting) to automatically color-code values — e.g. red for over-budget, green for under-budget.
• Keep the raw data on a separate, hidden sheet so the dashboard sheet stays clean and doesn't get accidentally edited.
• Add a title and date to the dashboard so anyone printing it knows what they're looking at and when it was last updated.

Practical Skill: Combine your attendance tracker, sales summary, and budget sheet into a one-page dashboard with conditional formatting highlighting any figures that need attention.

=== ONE-PAGE DASHBOARD LAYOUT === +----------------------------------------------------+| ORGANIZATION NAME — MONTHLY DASHBOARD (March 2026)  |+----------------------------------------------------+| [Chart: Sales by Region]   | [Chart: Attendance %]  ||                             |                        |+----------------------------------------------------+| Budget Summary Table (conditional formatting)       ||   Item         Planned    Actual    Status           ||   Transport    5,000      6,200     [RED — over]     ||   Supplies     12,000     11,000    [GREEN — under]  |+----------------------------------------------------+ === CONDITIONAL FORMATTING RULE EXAMPLE ===  Select the "Status" or "Actual" column  Home -> Conditional Formatting -> New Rule  Format cells where: Actual > Planned  Apply: Red fill  Format cells where: Actual <= Planned  Apply: Green fill