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.

Here’s a collection of livestreams:

a sliceable Gantt chart that automatically updates and populates itself when you add more rows to your dataset (i.e., no tedious manual updates).

How to Make Sliceable Gantt Charts in Excel

You can watch the high-level tutorial here:

What’s Inside

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:08 The end product: Sliceable in Excel. or printed/PDFd
• 1:52 Gantt chart options in Excel: 1) Stacked bar chart or 2) Inside cells, like this
• 3:50 Dataset
• 5:51 Pivot table
• 6:29 Slicer
• 6:40 List of projects and their amounts
• 8:30 Helper cells to the left and above
• 9:55 AND formula to fill in the body of the table
• 11:18 Conditional formatting
• 12:50 Theme Colors
• 13:40 Your Homework List
• 14:17 Want more details? Watch the 2.5-hr livestream
• 14:37 Download this Gantt chart

Download the Excel File

It’s here.

Related Resources

• The full livestream where I created this from scratch
• Helper cells

In this 8-minute lesson, you’ll learn:

(1) how small multiples layouts can help, and

(2) how to make small multiples charts in Excel.

What’s Inside

• 0:00 My goal: Convince you to use MORE GRAPHS
• 0:32 The fictional example: 3 different variables/units
• 1:44 Before: Everything together in one graph
• 2:30 After: Small multiples
• 3:21 How to make small multiples line graphs in Excel
• 4:30 Use the “Select Data” menu to graph 1 variable/unit at a time
• 5:10 Copy-paste to make the additional graphs
• 6:24 Align and group the separate graphs together
• 6:55 1 lonely line? Try an area chart
• 7:30 What it would look like in Word
• 8:09 Recap of key points

Download the Excel File

It’s here.

I recently saw a boring, black and white table as I was scrolling through LinkedIn.

The topic caught my attention—it was about Hispanic adults living with HIV—but the poorly-formatted table wasn’t making the patterns easy to understand.

I had a 30-minute window before I needed to pick up my kids from school, so I dove in!

In this 7-minute summary, you’ll learn:

1. bare-minimum edits for tables (alignment, decluttering, etc.);
2. a few different ideas for visualizing percent changes (checkboxes, slopes, deviation bars, icons); and
3. the winning design.

What’s Inside

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:18 The original table
• 1:06 Remaking the table with the same formatting
• 1:23 Gray horizontal lines
• 1:31 Left-aligned text
• 1:48 Trend lines
• 2:27 Percent changes with deviation bars
• 2:53 How-to tips in Excel (sparklines, data bars, IF statements)
• 3:28 Checkboxes to show increases or decreases
• 3:52 Adding state icons with the StateFace font
• 4:27 Adding arrow icons
• 4:54 Narrowing-down the best ideas
• 5:25 Re-sizing the columns
• 5:40  Not so Debbie-Downery

Download the Spreadsheet

It’s here.

​What’s Inside

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:28 Lindsey’s question
• 0:54 Outside chart borders
• 1:19 Inside chart borders
• 1:56 Unsolicited dataviz editing 🙂
• 15:30 Before and after

Resources Mentioned

• Video about adjusting outside and inside chart border
• Video about color contrast testing