Create a Combination Chart

Ever see those charts where there is a column chart and a line chart in one?  Also there are two y axis that show ranges on values on both the left and right side of the chart?  Well this is called a combination chart and it's commonly used to show two series of data together.  I see this most in stock price type of charts where the column charts shows the volume of stock trading activity and the line chart shows the stock price.  It's actually fairly easy to create this type of chart and it's a great way to show multiple views of data in one chart.  See the video to learn how it's done.

Use the INDEX & MATCH Functions to Perform Lookups

Have you every used VLOOKUP to do look ups from table to table? If you have you'd know there were some limitation on how it performs look ups, such as it would only lookup up the item in the first column of the table you are trying to bring data over from. There are ways to get around that limitation, but another method is to use the INDEX & MATCH functions to perform table look ups. It might be scary at first, but once you get the hang of using these two function together, you'll find it very useful. Check out the video to see how.

Create an X Y Scatter Chart

If you've seen charts that are trying to compare two things, it might have been as a scatter chart or X Y scatter chart. It's often a basic statistical chart that can give you an idea about correlation like answering the question of "as the weather temperature goes up, do more people by ice cream?" This type of visual analysis is done nicely with a scatter chart, so if this is what you're looking for check out the video to see how to create a basic X Y Scatter chart in Excel.

Create a Dynamic Drop Down List

Do you want to learn how to create a drop down list? That's when you can click a small arrow to show you a list of choices. But what about after selecting an option from a first drop down list and it filters another set of options from another drop down list? That would dynamic wouldn't it? This video covers how to create a dynamic drop down list in Excel and it's pretty simple to do. See how...

Create a Basic Gantt Chart

Do you do project management and trying to figure out how to visually see tasks that are happening through a timeline? There's a tool to do that and it's called a Gantt chart. Though complex Gantt charts can be created with Microsoft Project (as well as other project management tools), if you wanted a basic Gantt chart this can be created in Excel. It doesn't take too much work and it's actually quite simple. Check out the video to see how it's done!