Combo charts in Excel - Dashboard Guide

Dashboard Mode - Combo charts

Dashboard Goal

Show monthly sales and profit margin together to understand both total sales and profitability trends over the year.

Sample Data

Month	Sales ($)	Profit ($)	Profit Margin (%)
Jan	10000	2500	25
Feb	12000	3000	25
Mar	15000	4500	30
Apr	13000	2600	20
May	16000	4800	30
Jun	14000	3500	25
Jul	17000	5100	30
Aug	18000	5400	30

Dashboard Components

• KPI Card: Total Sales
  Formula: =SUM(B2:B9)
  Result: 115000
• KPI Card: Average Profit Margin
  Formula: =AVERAGE(D2:D9)
  Result: 26.88%
• Combo Chart: Monthly Sales and Profit Margin
  Chart Type: Column for Sales, Line for Profit Margin
  Data Range: A1:D9
  Primary Axis: Sales (Column)
  Secondary Axis: Profit Margin (Line)

Dashboard Layout

+----------------------+----------------------+
|  Total Sales (KPI)   | Average Profit Margin |
|       $115,000       |       26.88%          |
+----------------------+----------------------+
|                                              |
|          Combo Chart: Sales & Profit Margin  |
|                                              |
+----------------------------------------------+

Interactivity

Add a filter for Month to select specific months. When you choose months, both KPI cards and the combo chart update to show data only for those months.

Self Check

If you filter the dashboard to show only March to May, what happens?

• Total Sales updates to sum sales for Mar, Apr, May: =SUM(B4:B6) = 15000 + 13000 + 16000 = 44000
• Average Profit Margin updates to average profit margin for Mar, Apr, May: =AVERAGE(D4:D6) = (30 + 20 + 30) / 3 = 26.67%
• Combo Chart updates to show only those three months with their sales columns and profit margin line.

Key Result

Dashboard showing monthly sales and profit margin with KPIs and a combo chart for trend comparison.