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SUCCESS

Certification

Charts with Excel Seminar

Charts with Excel Workshop

Excel Templates

HI-CHART Templates '12

HI-CHART Templates '10

HI-CHART Templates '08

HI-CHART Templates '07 

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Three-day Seminar

Creating Sophisticated Business Charts with Excel

Overcome the constraints of working with standard Excel functions and gain complete freedom in designing your own charts for reports and presentations.

Download program in German as a PDF (0,2 MB)

PROGRAM, DAY 1

9:00 a.m. Start of the seminar

+ Welcome, organizational details, introduction, seminar overview

9:15 a.m. Overview of the SUCCESS Rules

 + Design concept, getting to know SUCCESS

 + An in-depth look at the guidelines for UNIFY (Uniform Notation)

10:45 a.m. Basic functions of Excel charts

We explain the basic functions of Excel charts, upon which the Tips and Tricks presented are based.

+ Specific application of chart types, such as columns, bars, and scatters.

+ Positioning charts precisely

+ Using primary and secondary axes

+ Navigating precisely in charts

11:45 a.m. Column charts (Part 1)

The first Tips and Tricks serve to demonstrate this entirely new way to approach charts: This means using existing Excel functions in a creative manner to achieve the desired results in visualization. We demonstrate these Tips and Tricks using a stacked column chart as an example.

+ Integrating a variable x-axis as a column chart

+ Placing sums above stacked columns

1:30 p.m. Exercise

Participants work on their own on the main aspects presented in the morning using a prepared exercise.

2:30 p.m. Column charts (Part 2)

We show how to design the chart elements so that they can be controlled via cell input.

+ Controlling margins on the left and right

+ Running every function with a shortcut

+ Determining scaling from outside the chart

3:45 p.m. Column charts (Part 3)

 + Adjusting the vertical position of the chart

 + Positioning the x-axis labeling freely

 + Placing the legends next to the data series

4:30 p.m. Exercise

Participants work on their own on the main aspects presented in the afternoon using a prepared exercise.

5:30 p.m. End of Day 1

PROGRAM, DAY 2

9:00 a.m. Start

+ Summary of Day 1

+ Questions and Answers

9:15 a.m. Column charts (Part 4)

To support the message, highlights are used in the form of lines, arrows, ellipses, and colors, positioned dynamically in the chart.

+ Positioning lines, arrows, and ellipses from outside the chart

+ Rotating arrows and determining colors from outside the chart

+ Performing a data-driven color change in the chart

+ Automatically hiding labels of small values

10:45 a.m. Bar charts

Bar charts are probably the second most important chart type.

They require special attention because you cannot use all of the tricks for column charts in the same manner for bar charts. There are different approaches to creating chart elements, such data series, axes, labels of bar charts. The most important visualization variations are presented here.

+ Understanding the differences between bar and column charts

+ Combining bars with scatters

+ Inserting an x-axis as a point

+ Adding legends to bar charts

+ Synchronizing point axes with bar axes

+ Stacking several charts appropriately

1:30 p.m. Exercise

Participants work on their own on the main aspects of bar charts using a prepared exercise.

2:30 p.m. Report layout (Part 1)

The transition from a single chart to a report page is explained and implemented using a grid layout and the Excel camera.

+ Positioning the message, title, and footnotes precisely

+ Including comments in the charts depending on context

+ Using the Excel camera meaningfully

3:45 p.m. Report layout (Part 2)

For use in a presentation, the report page created in Excel is linked with PowerPoint and thus remains dynamically updatable. In this case, appropriate working methods help to avoid the typical problems that arise from linking. Afterwards, the separate chart templates are configured meaningfully and the finished report page is examined.

+ Linking with PowerPoint and Word correctly

+ Configuring chart templates

+ Dynamically updating a report

5:30 p.m. End of Day 2

PROGRAM, DAY 3

9:00 a.m. Start

+ Summary of Day 2

+ Questions and Answers

9:15 a.m. Waterfall charts

So-called waterfall charts (change charts, stepped charts) represent a special form of visualizing differences

+ Comprehending the computational logic of the waterfall chart

+ Shifting to avoid zero crossings in bars or columns

+ Creating broken transition lines

+ Creating a dynamic width

+ Visualizing zero values correctly

+ Displaying subtotals as columns or bars 

+ Understanding the differences between column and bar visualizations

10:45 a.m. Exercise

Participants work on their own on the main aspects of waterfall charts using a prepared exercise.

11:45 a.m. Line charts (Part 1)

The technical implementation of charts with horizontal lines and stacked areas is very similar to that of column charts.

 + Getting to know the characteristics of line charts

 + Converting lines into a scatter chart

 + Fully utilizing scaling capabilities

 + Placing labeling automatically above or below the line

 + Getting to know the characteristics of area charts

1:30 p.m. Line charts (Part 2)

Line charts also present addition challenges not encountered in column and bar charts.

+ Avoiding a drop line for zero values

+ Incorporating a color change for lines

2:30 p.m. Exercise

Participants work on their own on the main aspects of line charts using a prepared exercise.

3:45 p.m. Scatter, Bubble Charts

As opposed to the afore-mentioned category charts, scatter and bubble charts have two value axes, which can be used to visualize any point in the area.

+ Understanding the bubble chart type

+ Creating bubbles as a scatter chart

+ Labeling bubble charts without x- and y-axes

+ Animating a bubble visualization

5:00 p.m. Closing discussion

5:30 p.m. End of the seminar

SPEAKERS

Holger Gerths, Dipl-Ing., is the 'inventor' of our Excel Tricks and advises many companies on Excel charts and other software issues.

Markus Wolff, Dipl.-Bw. (FH), MBA, is the partner for projects in Austria. He works as a corporate controller in Graz, prior to that he was an instructor in adult education.

Jörg Knuth, Dipl. Ing., has worked for over ten years as a consultant and trainer, in particular involving Microsoft products.

SEMINAR OBJECTIVE

The main objective of this three-day seminar is to enable participants to design even sophisticated business charts using Excel. The intent is to show that it is possible to fulfill virtually any design requirement by using standard Excel functions creatively and without programming. The use of self-generated charts should not only help achieve a higher standard of quality, reusing them should also save time. This is not a standard Excel seminar in which Excel functions are explained. Options are presented instead for creating new types of visualizations using familiar functions.

During this three-day seminar, we show example reports illustrating the entire path from the problem to the solution. We first provide a brief overview of the SUCCESS Rules, upon which the example charts proposed here are based. Afterwards, we present a concept for improving the example report and then implement it step by step using Excel. The result is a professionally designed report page that can be updated dynamically. With the experience gained here, participants should then be able to design other sophisticated charts according to their own ideas.

IMPORTANT PREREQUISITES