Here are two common layouts that I’ve used over and over:

1. The filters along the top
2. The filters on the left side

Honestly, those are the only two layouts you should be using.

In other words, we’d never want to hide the filters along the bottom. And I don’t recommend placing the filters on the right side (because we read from left to right).

Here’s an example of each style.

(1) Dashboard Filters at Top

Here’s an example of a dynamic dashboard with a filter along the top of the screen.

These are pretend numbers, but inspired by a real dashboard I created during a workshop with a nonprofit organization. They wanted to be able to drill-down and look at a single cohort of participants at a time (just the Monday morning group, just the Saturday afternoon group, or just the Sunday evening group).

There are a dozen different graphs and maps, so it was impossible to fit everything on a single screen. (We didn’t want to sacrifice the font size – it’s nice and legible now, and if we shrunk everything down, it would be unusable.) So, the filter stays stuck at the top of the screen, and then the viewers can scroll downwards to see all the graphs.

(In Excel, we froze the panes so that the top few rows wouldn’t move.)

(2) Dashboard Filters Along the Left

Here’s a dashboard about fictional car sales.

There were several charts and maps, and I couldn’t fit everything on a single screen without sacrificing font size and readability.

So, the two filters are frozen on the left side, and viewers can scroll to the right to see all the graphs.

How to Make Dynamic Dashboards

Want to make something similar for your own workplace?

Here are all my dashboard blog posts and YouTube tutorials.

In particular, you might like these examples of dynamic dashboards made in Excel that you can use for inspiration.

Here’s a how-to video about making dynamic dashboards in Excel and another how-to video about making dynamic dashboards in PowerBI.

I also teach private workshops and online courses about dashboard design.

Do you have specific questions? Reach out anytime.

And other times, lower numbers are better.

Here’s how you can add icons and text boxes to graphs to remove that guesswork for your colleagues.

This example was made in Excel – but the techniques can (and should!) be applied to visualizations in all software programs.

Excel can’t directly link pivot tables and maps.

We’ll run into an annoying error message.

In this video, you’ll learn the workaround: a Helper Table with a dynamic array function.

What’s Inside

• 0:00 How companies usually visualize budgeted vs. actual spending (in boring tables)
• 1:11 2-Page PDF
• 2:56 Dynamic Dashboard

• The visual superiority effect
• Preattentive attributes
• Decluttering first, then adding visuals
• Quick dataviz wins inside everyday software like Excel

What’s Inside

• 0:00 Welcome
• 3:10 Visual Superiority Effect
• 5:00 Preattentive Attributes
• 23:00 20 Quick Wins (spark lines, data bars, etc.)