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Jeff who?
Jeff.weir@HeavyDutyDecisions.co.nz
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-weir/

I analyse, automate, design

and build data stuff.
What’s this presentation about?

• Some great DataVis resources applicable to dashboard design.

• A quick look at advances to Excel (incorporated into PowerBI) that
makes dashboarding much simpler
• A quick overview of a ‘Fatigue Report’ dashboard built in Excel
• A quick look at a Turnover dashboard (work in progress) built in
Power BI
Introducing the tools…
This is Microsoft Power BI.
• Been around for 3.3 years
• Free to install and use on your desktop machine, and you can share files by
emailing them to other users or publishing publicly.
• You need cloud-based services (USD $9.99 per user per month) to share your
reports privately with other users. (A bulk capacity-based plan ~$6k per month
becomes economic > 600 users). You can restrict who sees what, by role or by
row
• Monthly update cycle. Definitely not finished yet. Many, many feature requests
• Some stock-standard charts offered out-of-the-box. Sparklines inexplicably
missing. (Vote for them here)
• Many more custom visuals available from the community (free and paid).
https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps?product=power-bi-
visuals
It’s super-easy to
import free custom
visuals into your
reports to supplement
the built in visuals
offered out-of-the-
box.

You just click that ellipsis by

the red arrow shown right,
and you get the list of
available visuals to import
as shown here.
The next 9 slides show all the custom visuals on offer as
at December 2018.

(You can tab through ‘em real fast if you don’t care).
This is an interactive Power BI report that tell you what Custom
Visuals for Power BI are available. (It’s a fun way to see what a web-
embedded Power BI report looks like, too)

Click the link below to try it out:

https://datachant.com/downloads/custom-visuals/
(After clicking that link you’ll need to scroll halfway down the page to locate it. Be sure to
click the “Enter Full Screen Mode” icon at the bottom right when you do).
This is Microsoft Excel (as if you didn’t know)
• 33 years old (It’s been around ten times longer than Power BI)
• Costs to install on your desktop machine, but free to share your reports with other users via
email.
• Monthly/Semi/Annual update cycle for O365 subscription version. Many feature requests.
(But much slower flow of new features given product maturity).
• Very programmable. Unlike Power BI, you can write code (VBA aka “Macros”) to not only do stuff
with data, but to create, filter, or move charts and other objects as you see fit.
• Some stock-standard charts offered out-of-the-box.
• Will soon be able to import and use Power BI Custom Visuals
 Demo showing how PowerBI Custom Visuals being inserted into Excel
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/excel-announces-new-data-visualization-capabilities-with-power-bi-custom-visuals/

This is the (near) future….it’s still in preview mode (i.e. not widely available).
Meanwhile, there’s 33 years’ worth of charting hacks available freely on the web….
…most notably from this guy:
https://peltiertech.com/

Jon Peltier,
Jon Peltier,
PatronExcel
Saint of Excel
Charting Charts
Guru
Jon’s blog shows how to coerce
pretty much any “respectable”
chart from Excel
 …and he sells an excellent charting add-in
https://peltiertech.com/Utility30/
Limitations can be liberating 
Me:
So what’s the difference to you between Excel and Power BI?

Ben from the PowerBI User Group:

The thing I like about Power BI is that it’s a blank canvas.

When you open Power BI, you know exactly what you are meant to be doing:
“Business Intelligence”

…and exactly where you are meant to be doing it:

“…on that white square bit”

…because mercifully that ‘blank canvas’ is a binding constraint.

 …whereas thanks to the scrollbar, Excel
goes on and on for ever…
Plus the output doesn’t look “hip” or “new” because it’s what
we’ve been using like for ever.
 It can be much harder to work out what
=> This doesn’t make it ‘wrong’ for dashboarding. But it certainly should go where, when (unlike PowerBI)
doesn’t make it ‘sexy’ for CTOs and bosses…especially when we still you don’t have a space limitation to really
see those giveaway gridlines poking through between charts. force you to “design”.
 So inevitably you keep adding stuff below
and to the right.
 And then you end up having to zoom out to
see everything at once. Which makes labels
too small to see 

You can turn ‘em off, mind.

http://dailydoseofexcel.com/archives/2014/11/20/out-damnd-
gridlines-out-i-say/
 Okay, we have tools.
But what about technique?
We need to get smarter about the design of dataviz.

Hirers are starting to explicitly call out that when it comes to BI Dashboards,
user-centered visual design skills are as important as technical IT skills.

[Potential Interview Question]

“So…can you tell us who or what influences your design thinking”?
 [Potential Interview Answer]
My key takeaway“This
fromguy
these books; my design thinking”.
influences

“At
Visual the heart(1997)
Explanations of quantitative
covers Information reasoningof mechanism and
the representation
The Visual Display of Quantitative (1983) A highly regarded book
is
motion, a
Envisioningsingle
process
Beautiful
on statistical question…
and
Information
graphics, dynamics,
(1990)
Evidence
charts, causes
showcases
(2006)
tables. and
isTheory effects,
aboutsuperb
and explanation
displays
the theory
practice inofthe
and and narrative,
high-dimensional
practice
designof of
analytical
data design.
and design
complex
graphics, strategies
data
The
250 and for enhancing
bookprovides
identifies
illustrations bestthe
ofpractical
excellent
the rate
advice
and
(and of information
about ofhow
aeffective
few to
methods
the worst)transfer
explain in print,
for complex
showing
statistical nearly every
presentations,
material
graphics, by visual
kind
with and
of computer
means,
detailed withscreens.
information,
analysis extraordinary
suggests
of how tomany examples
newdata
display to illustrate
designs
for (including
precise, the
sparklines)
effective,
fundamental
quick analysis.principles of information displays.

“At the heart of quantitative reasoning
is a single question…
Better comparisons = Better conclusions
We look at one page at a time. The more on the
page, the more effective and comparative our eye
can be.
 Graphics can be shrunk way down. But as visuals shrink, the
clutter of chartjunk, non-data-ink, and redundant data-ink is
even more costly than usual in data-rich designs.

 Use the smallest effective difference: Make all visual

distinctions as subtle as possible, but still clear and
…compared to what?” effective.

 For a wide range of problems in data presentation, small

multiples are the best design solution because they visually
enforce comparisons of changes, of the differences among
objects, of the scope of alternatives.
 Who
His book Information Dashboard Design gives elsedefinition
a solid influencesofmy design
what thinking?
we’re aiming for:
This guy:

A dashboard is a visual display

of
the most important info needed to achieve objective(s)
that has been
consolidated on a single screen
so it can be
monitored at a glance

“Monitored at a glance” means go easy on the interactivity and minimise the

…and inthrough
clicks the agesmarter
of mobile, we’d
layout. do should
Users well tonot
take heed
have of this:
to click and remember
“Well-designed dashboards
in order to make deliver
‘mission critical’ information that is displayed using concise and
comparisons.
often small media that communicate the information in the clearest and most
direct
Andyway possible.”
Kirk: “Do not underestimate how effective a well-conceived and
executed static presentation of data can be. The brilliance of interactivity is
“Compared to

what?” when it introduces new means of engaging with data that simply could not
be achieved in any other way.”
 Stephen Few: What graphs work best for dashboards?

Two fundamental principles should guide the selection of the ideas

display medium for a dashboard:

1. It must be the best way to display a particular type of

information that is commonly found on dashboards

2. It must be able to serve its purpose even when sized to fit

into a small space.

“Compared to

what?”
 Stephen Few’s “Approved” dashboard graphs
The best graphs for displaying quantitative information on a dashboard are:
• Bullet graphs Just because it is on this list does not make it a good choice!
http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/misc/Bullet_Graph_Design_Spec.pdf
Only use a stacked bar chart when you must display multiple instance of a
• Bar charts whole and its parts, where the emphasis on the whole and comparisons of
• Dot plots Remember
the constituent Stephen Few’s
parts are less Principle
important.#1:
• Line charts It must be the best way to display the information.
Why? Difference are difficult to detect for all but the series that appears at
• Sparklines the bottom of each bar.
• Box plots  If something else on the list makes it easier for the end user to answer the
question
Let’s “Compared
take a look at how atobad
what?” then
use of use that
a stacked bargraph
chartinstead.
can be rectified…
• Scatter plots
https://peltiertech.com/bullet-charts-in-excel/
• Spatial maps
• Heat maps Let’s run through a few of these quickly.
• Tree maps
“Compared to

what?”
Stacked Bar Chart Alternatives Much better way to arrange the same data
https://chandoo.org/wp/incell-panel-chart/
https://peltiertech.com/some-comments-on-dot-plots-guest-post/
https://peltiertech.com/stacked-bar-chart-alternatives/ for healthier consumption…

If your stacked bar chart looks like a stack

of Licorise Allsorts, it’s the visualisation
equivalent of junk food. Ditch it in favour
of something else.

“Compared to

what?”
 Stephen Few’s “Approved” dashboard graphs
The best graphs for displaying quantitative information on a dashboard are:
• Bullet graphs
• Bar charts
https://peltiertech.com/dot-plots-microsoft-excel/
• Dot plots
• Line charts As with Stacked Bar Charts, keep the number of series displayed in any
• Sparklines Stacked Line or Stacked Area charts “digestible”.
• Box plots Let’s take a look at how a bad use of a stacked bar chart can be rectified…
• Scatter plots https://peltiertech.com/dot-plots-microsoft-excel/
• Spatial maps
• Heat maps
• Tree maps
“Compared to

what?”
 My redesign is a much better way to arrange
the same data for healthier consumption…

“Spaghetti charts” give your users

visual indigestion.

Avoid legends if you can, by instead

labelling the last point in each series
directly.

(Otherwise the user is forced to constantly move I use an amended version of Jon Peltier’s Label Last
their eyes between the series and the legend in Point routine.
order to work out what each series is. And that Note the simple
(I’ve amended the codepies
so itshowing
also colours the share
the labels thatthe
to match each group
series, and of
gets in the way of the “compared to what?”) products
auto-spacescontributes
the labels so theytodon’t
theoverlap.
total.ItHelps withthe
even redraws thelabels in real
time if people filter the chart to show/hide other series. I’ll be releasing it as a
‘Compared to what?’ question between graphs.
commercial add-in for Excel…ask me if you want to buy a copy)
Andy Kirk: “It is vital to treat every representation challenge on its own merits. Just
because you have spatial data does not mean that the most useful portrayal of that
data will be via a map.”
 Lessons from a dashboard competition
Perceptual Edge 2012 Dashboard Competition: http://www.stephen-few.com/blog/page/16/

Perceptual Edge 2012 Dashboard Competition: http://www.stephen-few.com/blog/page/16/

Writeup: http://www.stephen-few.com/blog/2012/08/02/perceptual-edges-2012-dashboard-design-competition/

Stephen Few discussing Jason Lockwood’s winning entry (produced using Photoshop):
One of the first things you probably notice is its fine aesthetics. Its use of color, layout, and reduction of non-data-ink make it pleasing to the eye in a way that
enhances usability. Because color has been used sparingly, the red alert icons make it easy to spot the students that are most in need of immediate attention
(although the icons could be a little bigger to make them pop more).

The tabular (rows and columns) arrangement of student information (one student per row) makes it easy to see everything about a particular student with a
quick horizontal scan and easy to compare a particular metric across all students with a quick vertical scan.

All of the most important metrics were consistently represented using the same dark shade of blue, which featured them above other items nicely (although
the dark blue horizontal bars in the bullet graphs would have been easier to see and compare if they were thicker).

This design is scalable in that the addition of more students could be easily accommodated by simply expanding the dashboard vertically. Meaningful patterns
in individual student attendance information (days absent and tardy) can be easily seen.
“Compared to

what?”
 Lessons from a dashboard competition
Perceptual Edge 2012 Dashboard Competition: http://www.stephen-few.com/blog/page/16/

Perceptual Edge 2012 Dashboard Competition: http://www.stephen-few.com/blog/page/16/

Writeup: http://www.stephen-few.com/blog/2012/08/02/perceptual-edges-2012-dashboard-design-competition/

Stephen Few discussing runner up Shamik Sharma’s dashboard (produced using Excel 2010):
Once again, notice the fine visual aesthetics of this design. Also notice the additional class-level information that appears on the right that doesn’t appear in
the winning dashboard, especially the two distribution graphs on top, which are quite useful.

And finally, notice how the frequency distribution graph of assessment scores in the bottom right corner, which uses lines (called a frequency polygon) is easier
to read than the one that uses bars (called a histogram) in the winning solution.

A few features in this solution don’t work as well, however, as those in the winning solution. For example, it isn’t as easy to spot the students in need of
attention, and per student attendance information is aggregated in a way that hides patterns of change through time. Overall, however, this is excellent work.

“Compared to

what?”
 Lessons from a dashboard competition
Perceptual Edge 2012 Dashboard Competition: http://www.stephen-few.com/blog/page/16/

Perceptual Edge 2012 Dashboard Competition:

http://www.stephen-few.com/blog/page/16/

Writeup:
https://www.perceptualedge.com/blog/?p=14
66

Stephen Few discussing his own version of the

Student Performance Dashboard:

Now let’s consider a few ways that this design

succeeds where others fell short.

• Student-level and class-level information

has been well integrated.
• The sparklines are more informative.
• It is easier to see time-based attendance
patterns (absences and tardies).
• By placing class-level summaries below
related student-level information, the
“Compared to
relationship between them is clearly shown
what?” and comparisons can be easily made.
This dashboard illustrates
fatigue risk among custodial
staff given their shift patterns
and overtime.

It is rendered in Microsoft
Excel, but distributed via
Let’s
automatic look
email as aat a repor
PDF,
with the help of someto
Compared pretty
what?
trivial VBA code (Macros).

 At a pinch, you can use Excel

to produce and distribute
information-rich dashboards
for free! 
 Whereas Power BI can really
add up to $$,$$$ p.a. if you
have lots of end users. 
 Here’s the original report before the redesign. It’s
simpler, but it’s harder to make comparisons.

Andy Kirk:
Approx. 5% of people have compromised ability to discern particular colors/combos
such as Deuteronopia (red-green color blindness).

=> If your audience is undefined you are going to alienate potentially 1 person in
every 14!

ACTUAL DATA:

This future-focussed heatmap shows when staff are likely to be fatigued, but not why they
were fatigued in the first place. Plus it only covered 13 days, even though shifts planned 28
days in advance. Furthermore it only showed people that were over the reporting
threshold today but not who might be fatigued in the coming 28 days.
SELF ASSESSMENT TOOL

It’s possible to squeeze a lot more information in the

redesign than this original, because all this…

…can be boiled down …and the redesign actually shows four

to just that…. times as much data as that, meaning we
can see not just forecasted fatigue, but
also the history that contributed to it.
SELF ASSESSMENT TOOL
The redesigned report a lot more data dense, so we devote much more
space to educating the ever-changing, non-data audience.

(Originally our sparklines were in black &

white, as shown here. )
Ditto re forecasted metrics covering the next
daysWhether
Sparkline showing fatigue28levels over
shouldprev the
they person’s
28work max
days their fatigue
by workday/day
planned score
shifts.
Total number
Equivalent
of back-to-back
Hours number
ofHow
off, withofreference
8-hour
days
ofworked.
shifts
Overtime/Callbacks
many
Number days off
days
line worked.
(Including
they’ve
to site.
over taken.
reporting
showing Maximum
How into the
threshold
each
is higher
reporting future)
Fatigue
staff
or member
lowerScore
thanover
threshold. ranks
last thenationally.
week.2 months.

The sparklines are actually Excel charts masquerading as sparklines,

shrunken
It will report on anyone who exceeded down to …as
the fit inwell
a single cell and
as anyone ‘slaved’ to
exceeding a PivotTable.
threshold
See https://peltiertech.com/poor-mans-sparklines-in-excel/ and
threshold at least once in the last week… > 2 times over the nextEveryone 28 days. Safe
https://peltiertech.com/sparklines-for-excel-vs-excel-2010-sparklines-guest-post/#comment-26473
Every Day
 While Excel has built-in sparklines in both line and bar form as shown below right, they
don’t give us the resolution and flexibility we get from using actual shrunken charts.

People with red-green colour

blindness can still discern
patterns, because the values
are encoded into bar length
and not just colour.

For instance, using actual charts means we can programmatically colour each individual bar of the mini-chart
‘sparklines’ to better draw out to users when fatigue levels are unacceptably high.

And we can also show multiple series in each chart like I’m doing here, instead of just one series. (In this case, coloured
bars for days worked, white bars for days off, and a dotted reference line showing the fatigue reporting threshold.)
We also moved from Excel
2010 to Excel 2016, which
gave us a LOT more options in
the ‘back end’ behind the
scenes…
SELF ASSESSMENT TOOL

The original Excel 2010 file had something like 1.3M cells
with formulas in them (618k with computationally expensive
VLOOKUPS ).

This necessitated a separate file for each region => no way of

making comparisons across regions.

Everyone Safe
Every Day
In Excel 2013 or later, this complexity can be
replaced with the ‘Data Model”: Tables linked
by relationships between them
“Modern Excel” (and Power BI) : Hello Data Model, goodbye formulas…
With any version of Excel 2013 or later, you can use the Data Model to
mash together related tables directly to a PivotTable, without VLOOKUP.
These new PivotTables let you write formulas (called Measures) directly
inside Values fields using the DAX (short for Data Expressions) formula
language.
DAX is somewhat similar to traditional Excel formulas, and gives you
incredible control over how data is filtered, displayed, and aggregated.
Premium versions (or any Office 365 subscription plan) also include
PowerPivot, which additionally lets you create Calculated Columns that
give you similar control over fields it the other areas of your PivotTables.
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/where-is-power-pivot-aa64e217-4b6e-410b-8337-
20b87e1c2a4b

=> PowerPivot is the User Interface (UI) to the Data Model, but you can use DAX without
it. http://dailydoseofexcel.com/archives/2017/07/10/look-ma-no-powerpivot/
 Matt Allington’s book and video course is the easiest way for Excel folk to learn Data
Modelling and the DAX formula language

See https://exceleratorbi.com.au/courses-overview/
 “Modern Excel” (and Power BI) : Hello PowerQuery, goodbye cutting & pasting…
Similarly, with any version of Excel 2016 or later, a new inbuilt tool called PowerQuery
makes it much easier to do all your data import/transformations.

It lets people whip together refreshable queries to do quite complicated data

transformations really easily…stuff that would otherwise require tedious manual
cutting and pasting or loads of complicated Macros (VBA).

Ken Puls wrote the book on PowerQuery and has a

fantastic video course.
https://academy.powerquery.training/courses/power-query-academy

Ken says: “I love this tool. Not because of what I can do with it, but because of how easy it
makes it to get things done for a business pro without the need for coding.”

Ken is coming to Wellington in February 2019, and will be running a paid workshop if I can find some folk interested
in attending. Let me know pronto if you’d like to know more.
PowerQuery is also great at
scraping data from semi-
structured websites like this…
…and serving it up into
interactive reports, like this:
 PowerQuery/M and PowerPivot/DAX work hand in hand.

Use Data Modelling

(PowerPivot/DAX) to Use PowerQuery to
present the data in final Enhance/Transform/Load
form for end users your data to the Data Model

Recreating your reports each month,

week, day, hour is now as easy as…

…clicking Refresh
Power BI dashboard example (Work in progress)

What kinds of things might we want to

compare and contrast when looking at Staff
turnover?
Filtering
What is on Genderand
Turnover vs Highlighting:
how might Allit differ across other variables?

Let’s compare Power BI’s Filtering

vs Highlighting behaviour.
But why not display the
same information broken Ditto for ethnicity, in
down by tenure too, in case Turnover
case we =want
No. to
of staff
workthat
on left…
there’s some pattern or risk ensuring our workforce
we best know about? remains diverse?

…divided by headcount.

We could just show Staff Turnover by year. But why

not show how it’s calculated, too?
Filtering on Gender vs Highlighting: Female
Filtering on Gender vs Highlighting: Male
Filtering on Gender vs Highlighting: All
Female Selected
Selected

All (Male + Female)

Female only

Female only
All (Male + Female)
Highlighting on Maori Ethnicity vs dedicated Maori/Non Maori series

Be careful: It’s possible that people could misinterpret what highlighting shows,
as in this case where I’m highlighting on ‘Maori’ ethnicity.

If interpreted as a standard “Stacked Bar” this

would lead you to believe that Maori account for
nearly all turnover. But this isn’t a stacked bar,
and Maori actually have lower turnover than the
general staff population.

Turnover Rate: All (incl. Maori)

Maori Turnover Rate

Highlighting on Maori Ethnicity vs dedicated Maori/Non Maori series

Better to make up a dedicated side-by-side comparison,

so people know exactly what they are comparing.
Making comparing between sites by filtering is too hard!
You simply can’t contrast and compare trends
efficiently when forced to use a slicer.
Making comparing between sites by filtering is too hard!
You simply can’t contrast and compare trends
efficiently when forced to use a slicer.
Making comparing between sites by filtering is too hard!
You simply can’t contrast and compare trends
efficiently when forced to use a slicer.
Making comparing between sites by filtering is too hard!
You simply can’t contrast and compare trends
efficiently when forced to use a slicer.
Making comparing between sites by filtering is too hard!
You simply can’t contrast and compare trends
efficiently when forced to use a slicer.
Here’s a cool trick:
So let users
if you choose
expect whether
your users totomake
scalecertain
charts comparisons, explicitly design those
individually to maximise trends
views or scale
into your them as Here
dashboard. a group
we in
can see all graphs by each region.
order to directly compare and contrast bar height.
Here’s a cool trick: let users choose whether to scale charts
individually to maximise trends or scale them as a group in
order to directly compare and contrast bar height.
This trick uses a hidden series on each of the individual region
charts (shown here in red) that mirrors the largest value across all
regions, forcing the application to set the automatic y axis scaling
for each chart based on the exact same maximum value.
You can also write DAX code to let the
user choose between displaying Yearly
vs Monthly totals for relevant graphs.
You can also use mouse pop-ups in Power BI to show other graphs.
Here, I’ve freed up some space for other visuals by by ditching the y axis and shrinking graphs
down to just show trends. But you can still see the underlying details on mouse-over.
You can also use mouse pop-ups in Power BI to show other graphs.
Here, I’ve freed up some space for other visuals by by ditching the y axis and shrinking graphs
down to just show trends. But you can still see the underlying details on mouse-over.
False: Each graph scaled individually.
And as with Excel, you can hack together your
own combinations of shapes and graphs to
build just about anything you need.
True: Each graph scaled to show comparison And as with Excel, you can hack together your
to total staff count (the grey line) own combinations of shapes and graphs to
build just about anything you need.
 Lots
Sadly, they largely do a terrible job
of of interactive examples of Power BI
answering
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-showcase/
the question “…compared to what?”dashboards here.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/sample-datasets#the-power-bi-samples-as-pbix-files

And here’s some sample datasets as well as

sample dashboards to play with. Again, they all
to a terrible job of answering the question
“…compared to what?”
Where can I find out more about business-
focussed Dataviz?
OMG! Somebody’s developed a Standard. (And it’s good)
https://www.ibcs.com/standards
 Get a free copy of the standard from this page:
https://www.ibcs.com/product/ibcs-standards-pdf/?v=8e3eb2c69a18

You don’t have to pay the price above. Just click

this, sign up for a free membership, and they
send you a code to download it.
 So Jeff…which tool is best for dashboards?

Power BI offers lots of useful chart types. (And a fair few Excel offers lots of useful chart types. (And a fair few
useless ones too…) useless ones too…)

Power BI has awesome data handling (PowerQuery) and Excel has awesome data handling (PowerQuery) and
modelling (DAX) components. modelling (DAX) components.

Power BI can be used to create awesome dashboards. Excel can be used to create awesome dashboards.

Power BI is often used to create awful dashboards. Excel is often used to create awful dashboards.

A lot of helpful literature on what could make the A lot of helpful literature on what could make the
difference is sadly unfamiliar to the people building difference is sadly unfamiliar to the people building
these dashboards. these dashboards.
The more time you spend thinking about how users will make
comparisons, the less time they’ll have to spend comparing.