Tip #11: Building spreadsheet dashboards 101

Tip #11: Building spreadsheet dashboards 101

If skimming is the new reading, then dashboards are the new data set. People want to zero in on small slices of information, rather than pouring over a vast set of data. Provide key insights using a carefully crafted dashboard for your spreadsheet.



Here are a few questions you can ask to get started:

What questions do you have about the data?

A dashboard is built mainly to serve one purpose: to make it easy for people to find the information they need. Let's say you have the Q2 sales records. These records contain the dates of transactions, sale values, items sold, and sales rep details.



Here are some key questions you might have about the data:
  1. Which rep has sold the most?
  2. Which items have been sold the most?
  3. Which month did we sell the most?
  4. Which items did each of these reps sell the most?


Keep your list of questions concise, and aim to create a dashboard that answers them effectively. 

Is the dashboard interactive?

Make your dashboards exhaustive, yet concise, by making them interactive. Why? Because when an entire team views a spreadsheet, not everybody will be looking for the same insights from the data set. When you have too much information displayed on a dashboard, users will need to scroll up and down. Dashboards work best when users can view the entire dashboard without having to scroll at optimal zoom and view. 



You can use a combination of checkboxes, picklists, If functions, filters, and Lookup functions to make your dashboards interactive. You can even maintain slices of the original data set in a hidden sheet to make it easy to retrieve them for your dashboard.

Are there visual representations of your data?

Make sure your dashboard is visually engaging. Add contextual charts, place sparklines next to your data, and color code your dashboards based on various conditions. Use the format painter to maintain a consistent design across your dashboard. Combined with interactivity, this makes your information stand out and ensures your dashboards are self-explanatory. Choosing the right chart type, properly formatting cells, and carefully arranging your data aren't simply aesthetic choices—they make your dashboard easier to understand.



Spreadsheets can be versatile. Zoho Sheet is feature rich, and can greatly enhance your spreadsheet and dashboard-creation experience. We hope you enjoy creating your interactive dashboards, and hope you'll share your favorite tips with us in the comments. Get hands on experience on the example spreadsheet dashboard used above.

Related links:

Creating interactive spreadsheets - https://zurl.co/HKP4
Format painting - https://zurl.co/Iqsc Data validation - https://zurl.co/aC55 Charts and visualization - https://zurl.co/vc9G


      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • Sticky Posts

          • Tip #20 - Three things you probably didn't know you can do with picklists

            Hello Zoho Sheet users! We’re back with another quick tip to help you make your spreadsheets smarter. Picklists are a great tool to maintain consistency in your spreadsheet. Manually entering data is time-consuming and often leaves typos and irregular
          • Tip #18: 6 Trendlines and when to use them in your spreadsheet data?

            Charts are a great tool for visualizing and interpreting large chunks of data in spreadsheets. Zoho Sheet offers you 35+ chart options, along with AI-powered chart recommendations based on the data set you select. There are various chart elements that
          • Tip #16: Ask Zia your data-related questions and get powerful insights

            Zoho Sheet provides a variety of tools and functionalities to help you analyze your data from end to end. But what if you could analyze all your data sets with a single AI-powered tool? Meet Zia, our smart virtual assistant who will answer all your data-related
          • Tip #17: Easily share spreadsheets with non-Zoho account users

            With efficient, collaboration-friendly options, Zoho Sheet is a popular choice among users. Sheet's external share links help you collaborate more effectively by sharing your spreadsheets with anyone outside your organization, including users who do not
          • Tip #7: Four things you didn't know you can do with Conditional Formatting

            Conditional formatting helps you highlight and visualize data in your spreadsheet based on provided rules. Zoho Sheet offers three types of conditional formatting: Classic, Color Scales, and Icon Sets. If you're already familiar with how Conditional Formatting works, here are some bonus tips for Classic formats: Customize rules with formulas Zoho Sheet allows you to create personalized rules based on formulas. For example, in a task list you can use customized formulas to highlight tasks which are

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ






                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • Set Custom Icon for Custom Modules in new Zoho CRM UI

                                  • Live Webinar: Getting Started with Zoho WorkDrive - A Complete Overview

                                    Hello everyone, We’re excited to invite you to our upcoming live webinar! Discover how to set up your team, bring in your data, and make the most of WorkDrive’s collaboration, organization, AI, and security capabilities. This session is perfect for anyone
                                  • Marketing Tip #4: Build your email list early

                                    Email marketing has one of the highest returns on investment. Don’t wait until later; start collecting subscribers now. When you've got their attention, you can send them emails about offers, new product launches, seasonal greetings, and more. Try this
                                  • Is anyone else having trouble saving a custom image in their email signature, or is it just me?

                                    When I try to save the image I get an error that says "Operation Failed" I opened a support ticket two weeks ago and received a response that it would be debugged, but it still isn’t working
                                  • Unify Overlapping Functionalities Across Zoho Products

                                    Hi Zoho One Team, We would like to raise a concern about the current overlap of core functionalities across various Zoho applications. While Zoho offers a rich suite of tools, many applications include similar or identical features—such as shift management,
                                  • Zoho Desk Domain mapping / Cloudflare CNAME not recognized

                                    Hello, my website is behind Cloudflare and SSL. From the Cloudflare control panel I added a CNAME record such as support.mydomain.com pointing to desk.cs.zohohost.com but I'm stuck with the message "Make sure you've mapped the CNAME entry..."
                                  • Create an Eye-Catching Announcement Widget for Your Help Center

                                    Hello Everyone! In this week’s edition, let’s explore how to keep your customers updated with exciting news in the Help Center. See how ZylkerMobile wowed their customers by bringing updates right to their portal. ZylkerMobile, the renowned brand for
                                  • I want to add my other zoho account in same pc

                                    why does zoho restrict me doing many things as i also want to add my second mail account bit its not allowing me to do that
                                  • Search in Zoho Community Not Working

                                    I realize this is a bit of a meta topic, but the search for the various Zoho Communities appears to not be working. I'm under the impression that they run on some version of the Zoho Desk platform, so I'm posting this here.
                                  • Capture Stripe’s Customer ID

                                    Does anyone know of a way to capture Stripe’s customer ID that is created when the form/payment is processed? I would like to have the customer ID stored in our CRM so we could utilize in some custom functions down the road.
                                  • Custom Modules - Where are Comments??

                                    In the standard ticket module and in the tasks module, we have an interactive comment box that we can post important details/notes and can tag others if needed. Where is this functionality for Custom Modules? Ideally, custom modules would have very similar,
                                  • Dynamic Signature - Record owner

                                    Hi everyone, I’m using Zoho Writer merge templates from Zoho CRM and have two questions: Owner signature: How can I automatically insert the CRM record owner’s signature in the merged document? I’m not sure where this signature is stored or how to reference
                                  • PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK (CORPORATE) INDIA - NOT AVAILABLE IN BANKING

                                    Dear sir, Kindly fix it. PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK (INDIA) is available but PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK (CORPORATE) is not available. Kindly enable this banking since we need to categorize the entries. Regards, Sanjay Jena email id/ user id : travewithmerchant@
                                  • Amazon invoice in Zoho Books

                                    I have just made my first few sales on Amazon India. Amazon Seller account generates invoices for the sales made on Amazon. These invoices are sent to customers also. Now when I was only making offline sales, I used to create Invoices in Zoho Book. Now
                                  • CUSTOM FUNCTION GIVE ERROR #EVAL!

                                    CUSTEM FUNCTION CREATE KYA ZOHOSHEET ME US FUNCTION KO USE KIYA LEKIN DATA TO SAHI HAI LAKIN DATA SHEET ME NAHI LAG LAHA HAI KRUPYA SOLVE KARE MY CODE IS float ADDTWO_TWO(float NO1, float NO2) { ADD = NO1 + NO2; return ADD; }
                                  • Zoho ShowTime: Certificates of Completion - Award your learners with a sense of achievement

                                    In our increasingly competitive market, professional trainers need to differentiate themselves if they are to survive. One way to do this is to focus on innovation and deliver an ideal learning experience. By developing a renowned certificate program that provides learners with a specialized skill set for a particular industry, both trainees and future prospects will recognize the trainer's leadership in that field. This can help with long-term growth, revenue generation, and even marketing and branding.
                                  • IMAP Migration from Gmail

                                    I have been trying to import my email from a Gmail server and keep receiving the following error. I have reduced the security, activated imap and no improvement. The link to the Google support item has not helped. Unable to connect to your account. Please
                                  • Your Incoming has been blocked and the emails will not be fetched in your Zoho account and POP Accounts Click here to get unblocked.

                                    When entering my account, this error is thrown at me, and I deleted a good part of my deleted messages, but I still can not unblock it, I would appreciate your help. reservas@lineasperutravel.com
                                  • Request for Creating Multiple Email Accounts on One Mobile Number

                                    Dear Zoho Team, I am planning to shift all my work-related communication to Zoho Mail because of its reliability and features. For my work, I need to create 3–4 separate email accounts for different purposes. Could you please confirm if it is possible
                                  • Signature issue

                                    Problem: The signature does not appear when replying or forwarding an email. solve issue: settintgs/Signature Check option place a signature above the content with quotation marks
                                  • mail admin not loading

                                    i am trying to login to mailadmin ... gears keeps rotating forever... its not a password issue whats so ever ... not cookies issues whatsoever from android app i can login but there so few things to do from there .. i changed ip address the same... i
                                  • Unify All Zoho Video Meeting Experiences into One Standardized Platform

                                    Hi Zoho Team, We would like to share an important user experience concern regarding the current state of video meeting functionality across the Zoho ecosystem. The Problem Within Zoho, there are multiple ways to initiate or schedule a video meeting: Zoho
                                  • Changing Account in Quote form does not update address information.

                                    I am trying to update the address information in a quote I've created. I corrected the address in the "Account" but that did not change in the quote. If I re-enter the Account Name in the Quote form, nothing updates. How do I fix this?
                                  • Zoho One Backup of entire account

                                    Hello, When using Zoho one is there a way to backup your entire account of all apps that you are using \ activively using in a single step or do you have to backup each applications data individually? Thanks,
                                  • ZIA in Zoho Cliq

                                    Is It possible to use the ZIA feature from Zoho Analytics in the Zoho Cliq?
                                  • Issue with “CC” and “Subject Details” of the initial mail when reply / replied all / forward using Zoho Mail Client (Desktop / Web Mail / Mobile App)

                                    It is observed that when I reply / reply all / forward a mail using Zoho Mail Client (Desktop / Web Mail / Mobile App), the “CC” and “Subject Details” are omitted from the mail which was replied/forwarded. However this is not the case with outlook mail
                                  • Unable to send Emails - 452 4.3.1 Temporary System Error

                                    Whene ever i request smtp server to send the email (without attachment). i recieve error "452 4.3.1 Temporary System Error"
                                  • I can't receive email

                                    I cannot receive any email sent to my Zoho email after the free upgrade plan trial is finished.
                                  • Help for the alisa adding

                                    Sorry, I would like to add a paypal alias on my domain email address. However, the system blocked it. How can I do it?
                                  • Problem with Writer and Workdrive

                                    Hi team, I’m the super admin for our Zoho One org. WorkDrive is active, and Zoho Docs is deprecated for our org. However, Zoho Writer cannot connect to WorkDrive at all — we’ve cleared cache, tried incognito, and restarted several times. I was able to
                                  • Lite plan attachment said 250mb but actually 25mb ?

                                    Lite plan attachment said 250mb but actually 25mb ? I can't attach over 25mb files, and can't receive mails has attached files over 25mb too
                                  • Zoho Books | Product updates | August 2025

                                    Hello users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements in Zoho Books. From the right sidebar where you can manage all your widgets, to integrating Zoho Payments feeds in Zoho Books, explore the updates designed to enhance your bookkeeping experience.
                                  • Constant color of a legend value

                                    It would be nice if we can set a constant color/pattern to a value when creating a chart. We would often use the same value in different graph options and I always have to copy the color that we've set to a certain value from a previous graph to make
                                  • Can no longer export as pdf

                                    In NOTEBOOK I am no longer able to export notes to pdfs as I used to be able to. When I hit that command it asks where I want to send it, but no matter what I chose there is no pdf attachment that shows up in order to send. Nothing happens.
                                  • Option to Customize Career Site URL Without “/jobs/Careers”

                                    Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the Career Site URL structure in Zoho Recruit. In the old version of the career site, our URL was simply: 👉 https://jobs.domain.com However, after moving to
                                  • Old vs New Value for Deleted Lookup Values

                                    Suppose the following scenario, where a value in a lookup is deleted: 1. User has countries form 2. Form A has a lookup to countries form 3. User selects Italy in Form A and saves it with the Italy ID 4. Form A report shows Italy 5. Italy is inadvertently
                                  • Desktop app doesn't support notecards created on Android

                                    Hi, Does anybody have same problem? Some of last notecards created on Android app (v. 6.6) doesn't show in desktop app (v. 3.5.5). I see these note cards but whith they appear with exclamation mark in yellow triangle (see screenshot) and when I try to
                                  • customize payment page

                                    Is there a way to customize, other than the theme colour, the payment page that customers are taken to from invoices? I can't seem to find a way. I just don't like the formatting of the current page and would like to make it look better. I've looked at
                                  • Are Environments Worth It?

                                    In concept, Environments in ZC is a great idea. I think the flow is pretty smart when you compare it to GitHub, especially for a low code audience. However, in practice, I've found it to be unpredictable, and I've only used it a few times. Aside from
                                  • Enhanced duplicate check for Leads in CRM

                                    Hello Everyone, We are excited to announce that you can now check for duplicate entries in leads by comparing them with similar records in the Contacts Module. Previously, when you added a lead, only the converted leads were checked for duplicates. This
                                  • Next Page