Book Image

Building Dashboards with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and Excel 2013

By : Mark Polino
Book Image

Building Dashboards with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and Excel 2013

By: Mark Polino

Overview of this book

Accounting systems like Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 hold a wealth of information. Excel 2013 provides a great tool for linking to, extracting, analysing, and presenting that rich data to help companies make better, faster, and smarter decisions.Building Dashboards with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and Excel 2013 covers how to get the rich, detailed information contained in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and present it in an attractive, easy-to-understand way using Excel 2013. The book shows in detail how to build great-looking dashboards that enhance a company's decision-making process.This book shows you how to get at the rich, detailed information contained in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and present it in an attractive, easy-to-understand way using Excel 2013. This guide will take you from the basics of setup and deployment to creating secure, refreshable Excel reports. Using a whole host of tools available within Excel, this tutorial will show you how to visualize your data using simple conditional formatting techniques, easy-to-read charts, and allow you to make your data interactive with Slicers. Building Dashboards with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and Excel 2013 provides a way for you to easily build that interactive dashboard that your CFO keeps asking for.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Building Dashboards with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and Excel 2013
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Sparklines


Sparklines provide a way to show a quick trend on data. Unlike traditional Excel charts, sparklines fit in a single cell and are designed to show things such as a quick trend for a subset of information.

Preparing for sparklines

Sparklines are mini-charts placed in an individual cell and designed to display information from a single row of cells. They are a great way to provide a quick snapshot of key data. We'll add some sparklines to our revenue and net income data. First let's set up the formatting:

  1. Open the GP 2013 Dashboard.xlsx file that we've been working with.

  2. Click the Dashboard tab to open the worksheet.

  3. Select cell I6. This should be the cell next to the header for period 4.

  4. Type Quick Trend in cell I6 and widen the cell to ensure that it fits.

  5. Select cell H6.

  6. Select the Home tab and click the paintbrush icon to copy the formatting.

  7. Click on cell I6 to apply the formatting.

Adding sparklines

Now that we're set up, let's build a sparkline:

  1. Highlight cells E7 through H7. These are...