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

• Topic Participants

• Selva Sundaram M

  

• 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

• Recent Topics

• Kaizen #136 - Zoho CRM Widgets using ReactJS

  Hey there! Welcome back to yet another insightful post in our Kaizen series! In this post, let's explore how to use ReactJS for Zoho CRM widgets. We will utilize the sample widget from one of our previous posts - Geocoding Leads' Addresses in ZOHO CRM

• Getting Permission denied to access this portal.

  We have one user that can't login to projects even though access has been granted. This user can login to accounts.zoho.com but when login to https://projects.zoho.com/portals.do we get this error: Unauthorized login to this portal Permission denied to access this portal. Check your portal URL again. Sometimes we also get "server too busy". We have tried killing sessions (in accounts.zoho.com) and we have deleted cookies; and tried different computers and still the same problem. All others use can

• Marketing Tip #1: Optimize item titles for SEO

  Your item title is the first thing both Google and shoppers notice. Instead of a generic “Leather Bag,” go for something detailed like “Handcrafted Leather Laptop Bag – Durable & Stylish.” This helps your items rank better in search results and instantly

• Does Zoho Docs have a Line Number function ?

  Hi, when collaborating with coding tasks, I need an online real time share document that shows line numbers. Does Zoho's docs offer this feature ? If yes, how can I show them ? Regards, Frank

• Setting Default Views for Custom, List and Detail Views

  Hey, Is it possible to set a default custom view, list view and detail view for a module for every user? We are onboarding a lot of non technical people that struggle with these things. Setting the views as default would really help. Btw: also setting

• Custom function return type

  Hi, How do I create a custom deluge function in Zoho CRM that returns a string? e.g. Setup->Workflow->Custom Functions->Configure->Write own During create or edit of the function I don't see a way to change the default 'void' to anything else. Adding

• Filter Based API request in Zoho Books using POSTMAN

  How do I GET only specified CONTACTS based on created time or modified time in Zoho Books using POSTMAN. In the api documentation, it is written we can apply filters but I need a sample request.

• URL validation

  We use an internal intranet site which has a short DNS name which Zoho CRM will not accept.   When attempting to update the field it says "Please enter a valid URL". The URL I am trying to set is http://intranet/pm/ Our intranet is not currently setup with a full DNS name and given the amount of links using the shortname probably isn't a feasible change for us.

• 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

• Has anyone been experiencing slow issues?

  Dear all, I just want to ask if anyone has been experiencing slow issues with Zoho Creator in the past two weeks? I worked with the ISP to improve network quality by changing routes and upgrading bandwidth, but nothing changed. I am in Vietnam.

• Zoho Projects Roadshows 2025 - USA

  Dear Users, After an amazing response to our roadshows in 2024, we are excited to be back for the second year in a row! Join our team of experts as they walk you through the most-used features in Zoho Projects, explore powerful automation capabilities,

• Billing Management: #6 Usage Billing in SaaS

  Imagine a customer shuffling across multiple subscriptions, a streaming service, a music app, cloud storage, and a design tool. Each one charges a flat monthly fee, regardless of how much or how little they use. Some months, the customer barely opens

• Is there anyone who has been experiencing issues regarding the Zoho Creator Certification Website in the past 2 weeks?

  Dear all , I just wanted to ask is there anyone who was planning on taking the Zoho Creator Developer Certification Test in the past 2 weeks and have been facing errors stating that the website is under maintennance and also not allowed to access the

• Directly Edit, Filter, and Sort Subforms on the Details Page

  Hello everyone, As you know, subforms allow you to associate multiple line items with a single record, greatly enhancing your data organization. For example, a sales order subform neatly lists all products, their quantities, amounts, and other relevant

• GST Slabs Redefined: Stay Compliant Using Zoho Books!

  Hello Everyone! The Government of India is rolling out new GST rates, a major reform aimed at simplifying the current tax structure starting 22 September 2025. GST will move from four slabs (5%, 12%, 18%, 28%) to two main slabs (5% and 18%), plus a special

• Allow syncing Activities from other applications

  Marketing Automation could be a much more powerful platform if you were able to sync activities into the platform (e.g. purchase, donation, etc) outside of a user doing something on your website. I'd love it if you could sync Custom CRM Modules as activities,

• Create static subforms in Zoho CRM: streamline data entry with pre-defined values

  Last modified on (9 July, 2025): This feature was available in early access and is currently being rolled out to customers in phases. Currently available for users in the the AU, CA, and SA DCs. It will be enabled for the remaining DCs in the next couple

• Global Sets for Multi-Select pick lists

  When is this feature coming to Zoho CRM? It would be very useful now we have got used to having it for the normal pick lists.

• Introducing Profile Summary: Faster Candidate Insights with Zia

  We’re excited to launch Profile Summary, a powerful new feature in Zoho Recruit that transforms how you review candidate profiles. What used to take minutes of resume scanning can now be assessed in seconds—thanks to Zia. A Quick Example Say you’re hiring

• Integración Books para cumplir la ley Crea y Crece y Ley Antifraude (VeriFactu)

  Hola: En principio, en julio de 2025, entra en vigor la ley Crea y Crece y Ley Antifraude (VeriFactu). ¿Sabéis si Zoho va a cumplir con la ley para cumplir con la facturación electrónica conectada a Hacienda? Gracias

• Ask the Experts #1

  Hello everyone! It’s time to transform how you manage projects. Define the processes. Automate the tasks. Streamline the workflows. Let us dive into automation in Zoho Projects — from configuring workflows and custom functions to building triggers, using

• How to overcome Zoho Deluge's time limit?

  I have built a function according to the following scheme: pages = {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10}; for each page in pages { entriesPerPage = zoho.crm.getRecords("Accounts",page,200); for each entry in entriesPerPage { … } } Unfortunately, we have too many entries

• Checking if Creator has Change History

  Like zForms - whenever an entry was updated there's an option to attached change history to email notif. Trigger -> Successful form submission

• how to use validation rules in subform

  Is it possible to use validation rules for subforms? I tried the following code: entityMap = crmAPIRequest.toMap().get("record"); sum = 0; direct_billing = entityMap.get("direct_billing_details"); response = Map(); for each i in direct_billing { if(i.get("type")

• Adding contact role to a specific deal js sdk malfunctioning

  i was trying to add the contact role to a specific deal contact but repeatedly i am getting this error: { "code": "SUCCESS", "details": { "statusMessage": { "code": "INVALID_DATA", "details": { "expected_data_type": "jsonobject" }, "message": "body",

• Q3 Updates from Bigin!

  Hey Biginners, Hope you’re doing great! As we approach the end of 2025, we truly hope Bigin has been a part of helping you build your dream business this year! We've been busy working behind the scenes to bring you features that make running your business

• New Series Announcement - Ecommerce Marketing Tips

  Running an online business is more than just having a website. It’s about getting the right customers to discover you, trust you, and keep coming back. To support your growth journey, we’re launching a weekly Marketing Tips series right here on Zoho Commerce

• Client Script | Update - Introducing Subform Events and Actions

  Are you making the most of your subforms in Zoho CRM? Do you wish you could automate subform interactions and enhance user experience effortlessly? What if you had Client APIs and events specifically designed for subforms? We are thrilled to introduce

• {"errors":[{"id":"500","title":"Servlet execution threw an exception"}]}

  Here's the call to move a file to trash. The resource_id is accurate and the file is present. header = Map(); header.put("Accept","application/vnd.api+json"); data = Map(); data_param1 = Map(); att_param1 = Map(); att_param1.put("status",51); data_param1.put("attributes",att_param1);

• Converting Sales Order to Invoice via API; Problem with decimal places tax

  We are having problems converting a Sales Order to an Invoice via API Call. The cause of the issue is, that the Tax value in a Sales Order is sometimes calculated with up to 16 decimal places (e.g. 0.8730000000000001). The max decimal places allowed in

• Zoho Canvas - Custom templates for related lists

  Hi, I see that the example pages load always one of our related lists in a custom template, but I dont know how to work with that:  1) How can i make my own custom templates for related lists?  2) Where and how can i check out existing custom templates?

• Kaizen #147 - Frequently Asked Questions on Zoho CRM Widgets

  Heya! It's Kaizen time again, folks! This week, we aim to address common queries about Zoho CRM Widgets through frequently asked questions from our developer forum. Take a quick glance at these FAQs and learn from your peers' inquiries. 1. Where can I

• open word file in zoho writer desktop version

  "How can I open a Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) file in Zoho Writer if I only have the file saved on my computer and Zoho Writer doesn't appear as an option when I try 'Open with'? Is there a way to directly open the .doc file in Zoho Writer?"

• How to invite friends on other social media platforms to one of my group chats in arattai?

  Hello, I have formed chat groups in arattai. I want to invite my friends on other social media platforms like WhatsApp/ FB to one of my groups. Different friends would be invited to different groups. How to share an invite link of one of my groups to

• Zoho PDF editor has a lot of issues.

  Zoho PDF editor needs a lot of work. It hangs and glitches a lot. Deletes annotations and clearings randomly.

• Zohom mail

  Plz resolve the problem . I hope u understand .

• stock

  bom/bse : stock details or price =STOCK(C14;"price") not showing issue is #N/A! kindly resolve this problem

• Zoho sheet desktop version

  Hi Zoho team Where can I access desktop version of zoho sheets? It is important as web version is slow and requires one to be online all the time to do even basic work. If it is available, please guide me to the same.

• ZOHO SHEETS

  Where can I access desktop version of zoho sheets? It is important to do basic work If it is available, please guide me to the same

• Zoho Books - France

  L’équipe de Zoho France reçoit régulièrement des questions sur la conformité de ses applications de finances (Zoho Books/ Zoho Invoice) pour le marché français. Voici quelques points pour clarifier la question : Zoho Books est un logiciel de comptabilité

• Next Page