#Excel Bar Graph With Timeline How To Read Your#
#Excel Bar Graph With Timeline Professional Chart Templates#

Excel Bar Graph With Timeline Professional Chart Templates

Excel.Let me show you how we can pull this together as a project timeline in Excel, using a scatter chart. Milestone and task project timeline. The previous article used a timeline of dates and this article uses a monthly timeline.Table of Contents for Which Chart Type Works Best for Summarizing Time-Based Data in ExcelBrowse a selection of professional chart templates to find a flowchart, Gantt chart. In this article I want to build on a previous article about creating Gantt charts using a stacked bar chart in Excel. By using a chart in Excel, when the dates of the tasks change, the Gantt chart is automatically updated. You can include milestones if needed.

#4 Add context to your chartDifferent people analyze and interpret the same chart differently. When you use such charts it creates doubt on your analysis. Without any scale on the y-axis, there is no way of knowing where the y-axis starts. #3 Do not hide the scale on the вЂyвЂ™ axis of a line chartWhen you hide the scale of the вЂyвЂ™ axis, your chart wonвЂ™t accurately reflect the trend. Changes over several months or years) between the values of the data series:Use line charts when you have too many data points to plot and the use of column or bar chart clutters the chart.Use a line chart instead of a clustered column chart if the order of categories is important:Best practices for designing line charts #1 Start the вЂYвЂ™axis value at zeroWhen you do not start the вЂYвЂ™ axis value of a chart at zero, the chart does not accurately reflect the trend:For example, the following line chart amplifies the growth of Facebook fans because the вЂyвЂ™ axis value starts at 2500 instead of 0:Get the E-Book (40 Pages) #2 Do not use line chart (to create trends) if you have less than eight data pointsWhen you create a line chart with a few data points, the trend that you see can be very misleading.For example, the following line chart just contain two data points and as a result, it makes the growth look phenomenal:For a line chart, the more data points the better.

Excel Bar Graph With Timeline How To Read Your

This will let you find the exact time when there was a sudden rise or fall in the traffic. Line graphs should be used to identify spikes in the traffic. For example, a traffic increase over a period of time, weather report, an increase in sales, etc. Line charts are the best when you want to map continuous data over a period of time. In this way, you are giving clues to your chart reader regarding how to read your chart. No matter what chart you select, some people will always find a way to misinterpret your chart.Therefore it is critical that you provide context with your chart in the form of written commentary and describe exactly the intent of your chart.First present the context, then the insight and then the chart to support your insight.

In other words, avoid using column charts if you have just one data series to plot:Alternatively, avoid creating a column chart that has got more than four data series. Clustered column chartUse a clustered column chart when you want to compare two to four data series. It would be difficult to understand if there was a drop or rise in traffic for the interval not plotted on the graph. If data is not plotted in equal intervals, it becomes difficult to interpret the reports. However, it is advised that if there are more than four line charts on a single graph it becomes cluttered and difficult to interpret.Note: Always make sure that you are plotting data in equal intervals to make accurate representations.

Changes over days or weeks) and/or the order of categories is not important. So if the values of one data series dwarf the values of the other data series then do not use the column chart.For example in the chart below the values of the data series вЂWebsite TrafficвЂ™ completely dwarf the values of the data series named вЂTransactionsвЂ™:Use a clustered column chart when you want to show the maximum and minimum values of each data series you want to compare.Use a clustered column chart when you want to focus on short term trends (i.e. Whereas the data series вЂROIвЂ™ is of type percentage:Use a clustered column chart when the data series you want to compare are of comparable sizes. The data series вЂSalesвЂ™ is of type number. So avoid using column charts that compare data series with different units of measurement.For example in the chart below вЂSalesвЂ™ and вЂROIвЂ™ have different units of measurement.

#3 Use a bar chart whenever the axis labels are too long to fit in a column chart:Step-1: Select the entire data set in the Excel sheet. When you use such charts it creates doubt on your analysis. Without any scale on the y-axis, there is no way of knowing where the y-axis starts. For example, the following column chart amplifies changes because the вЂyвЂ™ axis value starts at 440 instead of 0:#2 Do not hide the scale on the вЂyвЂ™ axis of a column chartWhen you hide the scale of the вЂyвЂ™ axis, your chart wonвЂ™t accurately reflect the size of the variables. Best practices for designing column charts #1 Start the вЂYвЂ™axis value at zeroWhen you do not start the вЂYвЂ™ axis value of a chart at zero, the chart does not accurately reflect the size of the variables. Create another column chart which just compares the sales performance of various countries in Feb and so on:The rule of thumb is to avoid presenting too much data in one chart, regardless of the chart type you use.

However, in column charts, the data values will be displayed side by side, whereas in the stacked column chart data is stacked one over the other. They allow you to plot multiple data sets on the same chart.Best practice for using a combination chart is when you want to visualize differences between different sets of data.Clustered column chart and stacked column chart both display data in rectangular bars. I use combination charts a lot and I think you must know how to create them as they are very useful.Use a combination chart when you want to compare two or more data series that have different units of measurement:Use a combination chart when you want to compare two or more data series that are not of comparable sizes:Combination charts enable users to analyze large data sets with multiple chart types (bar and line) for a better understanding. Combination chartA combination chart is simply a combination of two or more charts.For example the combination of a column chart with a line chart.

For example, the following stacked area chart shows the breakdown of website traffic:Stacked area charts should be used when you want to show changes in part to the whole relationship over time. Stacked area chartAs the name suggests, a stacked area chart is a simple area chart that is stacked on top of one another.Use a stacked area chart when you want to show the trend of composition and emphasize the magnitude of change over time. If you have more than six to seven bars to be represented then consider using other chart types which are easy to be interpreted. Stacked column charts allow a part to whole comparison over time.Use a 100% stacked column chart when you want to compare data series along with their composition but the overall size of each data series is not important:Stacked column charts should be used for displaying the difference in numerical or percentage values.Best practice for designing stacked column charts:Stacked column charts should be used when you have more than one data set to be represented in the bar graph.Stacked column charts make comparison simple between values as everyone is familiar with column charts.While using stacked column charts make sure that your dates have the same intervals.Stacked column charts work better only for a few totals.