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Excel Dashboard and Visualization Boot Camp
by Jon Peltier
Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2008.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Microsoft MVPs Jon Peltier (Peltier Technical Services) and Mike Alexander (DataPig Technologies) are joining together to host our first annual Excel Dashboard and Visualization Boot Camp!
The conference will be held on Wednesday through Friday, October 22-24, 2008, in Frisco, Texas (just north of Dallas).
This 3-day boot camp is designed for Excel users who need to more effectively synthesize data into meaningful dashboards, charts, and visualizations. The topics presented during this boot camp will introduce you to advanced techniques that will help you build and manage better reporting mechanisms. Going beyond simple tables and charts, you will learn to:
- Synthesize data in meaningful views with advanced charting techniques
- Create dashboards that communicate and get noticed
- Create interactive dashboarding mechanisms
- Implement macro-charged reporting
- Automate the creation of PowerPoint slides directly from Excel
- Integrate external data into your reports
The boot camp will follow this three day agenda, with each day comprising two in-depth classes:
Day 1: Best Practices and Techniques
- Tips for Building Excel Dashboards
Mike Alexander - Advanced Charting Techniques
Jon Peltier
Day 2: Building Interactivity
- Building Interactive Reporting
Mike Alexander - Automating Excel Charting with VBA
Jon Peltier
Day 3: Integration
- Integrating Excel and PowerPoint
Jon Peltier - Using External Data in Excel Reporting
Mike Alexander
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For information and registration, visit the link below: Excel Dashboard and Visualization Boot Camp |
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- Reminder: Excel Dashboard and Visualization Boot Camp
- Upcoming Appearances
- It’s Friday!
- PTS Charting Classes
- Ten Chart Design Principles: Guest Post
- Dashboards
- Book Review: Pro Excel 2007 VBA
- PTS Blog Inaugural Post
Posted: Monday, August 4th, 2008 under Conferences.
Comments: 5
Comments
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Comment from derek
Time: Monday, August 4, 2008, 4:16 pm
Here’s an Excel data question. I had to email someone a pivot of a 30,000 row Excel table today, and the file came to 28Mb. I turned off the pivot’s tendency to keep a full copy of the data, which reduced it to 14Mb, then I thought I’d make the pivot read an external comma separated variable file of only 7Mb. I had to bring in a special CSV driver for that, but when I was done, the pivot spreadsheet was only 30Kb, and the spreadsheet plus the CSV file zipped to just 910Kb. Quite a difference from the initial 28Mb!
But I discovered that I would have to instruct my recipients to extract the zip file to *exactly* the same directory path on their C: drive as I had, or it wouldn’t work. I also found that every time I wanted to change the location of the CSV, I had to create a new pivot: I couldn’t find the way to simply redirect the old pivot to the new location.
What was I doing wrong in these two cases? Also, would my recipient need to load up an ODBC driver for .csv at their end, or did my setting it up take care of that?
Comment from Tony
Time: Monday, August 4, 2008, 4:40 pm
Three packed days! I see you drew the short straw in having to travel, but got the benefit of two afternoon sessions versus two early morning sessions.
Comment from Jon Peltier
Time: Monday, August 4, 2008, 6:13 pm
Derek -
I’ve had pretty good luck with using one workbook as the source and another as the parent of the pivot table. I think as long as the source is open the first time you refresh the pivot, it recreates links. From then on, you don’t need to open the source to refresh the pivot.
If I need to use CSV files, I will often write some VBA to set up the data source. Which is to say, I steal someone’s VBA, modify it, insert the path of the workbook with the pivot tables (which is presumably the same path as the CSV files), and distribute that set of files.
Don’t quote me on any of this, as I’m not an expert. I’m at the stage I can make it go, without knowing how all the details work.
Comment from Tony
Time: Wednesday, August 6, 2008, 11:29 am
Just sent an update via twitter with a link to the registration web site for this boot camp. Judging by the agenda, this should be an excellent and informative 3 days!
http://twitter.com/dsainsights
Update 2:
Registration and Info for Excel Dashboard and Visualization Workshop at: http://is.gd/1gWr
Update 1:
Excel Dashboard & Visualization Workshop by Datapig and PTS @Jon_Peltier. Should be very informative!
Comment from Jon Peltier
Time: Wednesday, August 6, 2008, 12:26 pm
Thanks, Tony
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