The One Sentence Every Analyst Fears: “Can You Send This in Excel?”

Read time: 2.5 minutes

Why People Continue to Demand an Excel Solution (and What to Do About it)

💡 Dashboards are about WHAT, not WHY
Dashboards can tell you what happened, but not necessarily why.
Solution: Include visuals that show the drivers of the metrics, allow users to see contributions to each metric over time, and provide a variance analysis between the metrics and previous periods.

💡 Executives want to instantly see clarity
Execs want the clarity of filters removed from their meetings.
Solution: Establish predefined views for Actual vs. Plan, Month vs. Month, and top drivers.

💡 Too many visuals disguise the insight
Large dashboards can be impressive-looking but often lose the user's attention.
Solution: Keep the executive page to 3 KPIs, 1 trend, and 1 explanation of the driver.

💡 Users in Excel feel they can explore more easily
In Excel, users can quickly pivot, slice, and dice data with minimal pre-defined structure.
Solution: Provide users with a guided analysis page for typical pivot-type questions.

💡 If users do not understand the number, they will export the data
If the user cannot explain the number to themselves, they will export the report.
Solution: Create dashboards that show the story behind the metric.

💡Key Takeaway: 

When people request Excel files in lieu of dashboard views, it generally stems from ongoing uncertainty about a given answer.

There is enough benefit in providing customers with their initial dashboard that they shouldn't ever need to export data from it.