The Dashboard first launched seven years ago with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger in 2005 and saw its final update in 2011 with the launch of OS X 10.7 Lion. The app first introduced the concept of widgets to. MacOS comes with a Dashboard, wherein you get widgets, apps designed to use a function or access a service. Widgets allow you to quickly access apps by switching to the Dashboard environment. Apple designed the Dashboard so that widgets could run in a protected area. To understand it better, you can think of it as a Sandbox.
Dashboard widgets on your Mac are a reflection of your busy lives. Mac Dashboard widgets get you the information you want, now. Still, Mac widgets under Mountain Lion are now taking second fiddle to the Mac App Store. Even so, the widgets mentioned here are worth it.
We will present you how to create a thermometer dashboard widget in Excel.
A thermometer graph indicates you the level of a target has been reached.
These can be pictures, objects made by shape technic, battery charts, infographics or even animations.
The common trait in all of these is that they able to spectacularly improve the appearance of a simple Excel template.
So the primary advantage is the support of the data visualization.
Other important feature is (and this is also why we make dashboards), that the analysis of the displayed information lasts a lot shorter than to check through a table / chart containing several hundred lines.
In today’s article we cover template design using shapes. The creation of these doesn’t consume a lot of time and yet they can be applied in many fields.
Free Dashboard Widgets – Thermometer
To develop a thermometer chart in Excel, we need two values. One cell need to show the actual value, and the second cell is the goal value so it will calculate the percentage.
We prepared the thermometer shape and the scales in Illustrator.
Here are some free alternatives to edit vector shapes for example Inkscape for Windows or DrawIt for Mac.
OK, what’s next? Just define a column graph then you can use the clustered column subtype. Select the vertical axis and right-click to get the ‘Format Axis’ window then in the scale tab of the ‘Format Axis’ panel, set min value to 0 and max value to 1.
It is very important to eliminate all the unnecessary elements from the chart (title, background, lines). Now fit chart to vector shape! That’s all! How it works? You can download the sample Excel workbook.
Dial tool to create KPI Templates
The Dial Widget is a simple but smart chart it can be very efficient if you calculate a actual / plan (actual / target) status in percentage.
We’ll use three cells.The first cell contains the plan value (120), the second cell contains the actual value (101), the value of third cell will be calculated based on actual / plan(actual / target) values.
The doughnut chart help us to visualize the gap.If you need more support, be sure to get in touch with us. You can download the dial mini chart using this link.
Score Meter Chart
The scoring tool is nothing else than an improved version of a Thermometer chart. We have divided the interval between 0% and 100% into 5 equal parts, and marked them with different colors. Every single interval determines a quality indicator from ‘bad’ all the way to ‘excellent’.
By looking at the picture you can see this chart doesn’t need too many explanations. The currently set value is shown by a blue arrow marker. Use this link to start the excel training!
Excel Dashboard Widgets
We have come to the last chapter of our Excel Gauge Widgets category. It doesn’t mean they are out of date we’d just simply like to take new direction that will contain at least as many useful templates as before.
In the past years we had manyspeedometerand other chart tools in our articles we think we close up with a “4 in 1” Excel Gauge Widget collection. We hope you will create many many excel dashboards by the models here, now everything is given for this.
We have gotten this from the bottom of the toolbox. Today we talk about four completely different structured tool, we hope you will like them.
Quarter style speedometer
This speedometer style isn’t too common but very useful. Just imagine that annoying situation that you have planned and created the dashboard and at the end we notice we had run out of space and only the point is missing.
The Scale settings part is the same in all the here introduced free dashboard widgets, you can set the usual KPI color chart in the Red-Amber-Green lines.
We recommend you that after downloading the template try to modify the values this way you will learn the fastest the knowledge needed to operate it.
Circle style speedometer
Here is the classic speedometer, can not be absent from any dashboard so we don’t talk about it lengthily.
Although there is one change that resolve the previous restrictions (that was sometimes a little bit annoying). The scale can not only be set between 0 and 100, but you can set it for arbitrary values, the widget will set to the new values.
We have used this format on many dashboards and were always successful. Of course there are always counter-arguments / doubts about its use we have read articles that didn’t have good opinion about it. We think it is mostly from lack of creativity and persistence.
Semi Circle Style Dashboard Widget
Interesting of the second speedometer that values can be given in %. So far this wasn’t typical but there are many key performance indicators (KPI) can only be defined in %. Some examples: First call resolution, Customer Satisfaction, Percentage of Calls Abandoned, Operational Efficiency and many many more.
If you use these indicators in the business life, then this speedometer is the best for creating perfect dashboards.
Blinker style speedometer dashboard widget
And for last let’s see something really special! The speedometer on the picture has an extra feature. On the bottom of the gauge there is a blinker that’s color-scale / color-value is free to change.
In the first part of this article we said we will end this series. This is of course not permanent if we find something new then we will immediately publish that.
There is an unforgettable part of every article and that is the download section. Thank you for visiting our excel blog! Stay tuned.
The 4 in 1 dashboard widget is availableon this link.
Many thanks for joining us today; we hope you will improve your excel skills using our tutorials and free dashboard widgets!
Free Dashboard Toolkit
In this article we will share you how to use our lightweight free dashboard widgets to create great but simple and fast presentations using free toolkit.
Our idea of a perfect dashboard to stop spending too much time at work.
What do you think about? If you are thinking of making a business dashboard template use our free resources. Try this widget pack to setting up your business goals!
Traffic Light widgets
We will show you how to set up traffic lights in Excel to show the actual value. We don’t need to use conditional formatting to highlight project status or KPI status.
Follow these simple steps to put value in a cell to visualize your data.
Click the left cell (Red) and insert the maximum value for red light. Click the next cell (Yellow) and insert the maximum value for yellow light. If the entered actual value is between 50 and 80 the light will be yellow. Under 50 the light will be red.
Try to enter a number between 80 and 130 and the light will be green. It can be useful for you to create a well-designed kpi dashboard or balances scorecard template.
Speedometer chart collection
We will show you how each type of speedometer works on this excel dashboard template. You can configure the yellow section. The color yellow indicates that the KPI Gauge has a value between 45 and 100.
The largest value in a range 150. Between 100 and 150 we indicate the maximum area of key performance indicator using green. Just enter a value into the input cell and the needle will show you the actual performance.
The picture below show you how to change the scale up to 270. The method for setting up the gauge is same as the first. The speedometer highlights information about the process or target by which range is selected.
We love interactive excel dashboard and free dashboard widgets! Follow us on social networks and use our free excel templates!
Download the traffic lights template and the speedometer template!Discover more examples!
As a Mac user, do you use dashboard widgets? If not, you’re really missing out. Dashboard widgets are so much more convenient than apps; they use up less RAM, yet can be just as powerful. Many Mac users don’t see a point in the dashboard; it’s definitely not for everyone. However, if you want to keep up with important information throughout the day (weather, news, email, tweets, events, etc), have a look at these best dashboard widgets for MAC osx.
So today I’m going to share 9 dashboard widgets for osx that are extremely useful and sure to come in handy whether you’re a casual or power user. If you’re a windows user, be sure to check out our earlier article – the best desktop widgets and gadgets for Windows.
Dropbox Droplet
If you have a Dropbox account, this dashboard widget makes it easy to add files to your account. Just drag-and-drop any file to the widget and it will automatically be copied to your public Dropbox folder. The URL will also be added to your clipboard so that you can share it anywhere – email, tweet, Facebook post, IM message or anywhere else. (also read: Dropbox tips and tutorials)
Apps For Mac Dashboard
Do you use Twitter, Identi.ca and/or FriendFeed? If so, this widget will allow you to keep tabs on them from your dashboard. You can view your friends’ latest updates, post status messages and links and send direct messages. It’s the ultimate micro-blogging widget for the Mac dashboard. There are also six color schemes to choose from.
Chirp is an older widget and it looks like its development may have stopped, so it may be a bit buggy. Even if you don’t use Identi.ca or FriendFeed (they’re pretty much dead anyway), Chirp is still a stylish way to keep tabs on Twitter.
Are you looking to keep up with your Twitter account quickly and in style? Twidget is the perfect dashboard widget for that. With it you can send out tweets, keep up with your Twitter timeline, send replies and direct messages, and add tweets to your favorites; unfortunately you can’t retweet – a huge disadvantage. The timeline will automatically refresh, so there is no work required on your end; you can even choose how often to update. Twidget is under active development and new features are in the works like Growl notifications, @reply highlighting, short URLs and more.
Do you take a lot of screenshots? If so, Screenshot Plus may be perfect for you. This dashboard widget allows you to take timed (10 second delay) full screen and selected area captures. You can save your captures to your hard drive or clipboard. If you’d like to edit your captures in another app, no problem; you can export them to any application on your Mac right from the widget.
You may or may not be familiar with JuneCloud; it’s an awesome package delivery tracking service. You can track packages from just about every delivery service like UPS, USPS, FedEx, Amazon (just enter order number) and more. I am an avid user of their their iPad app. If you do a lot of online shopping, this widget will be a Godsend because you’ll be able to track all your deliveries from a single widget on your dashboard. Best of all, Delivery Status includes notifications: via Notification Center or Growl. If you create an account (or already have one) and sign in, you can also sync your deliveries across devices.
Tea Timer
This dashboard widget is a personal favorite of mine. Even though it’s called Tea Timer, it’s not just for tea; you can use it for anything you’d like. It’s extremely customizable and has some great features like: Growl notifications, voice and/or sound alerts, color schemes, and the option to choose “ready in” (countdown to completion time) or “in” (countdown to start time).
Snooze
Snooze lets you specify a “sleep” time for your Mac. You can tell your Mac to go to sleep in 30 minutes, 2 hours, etc. This is useful if you are listening to music while falling asleep, watching a video, or even downloading a large file. Instead of leaving your Mac on for a prolonged time and letting your battery run down, Snooze will put your Mac to sleep automatically.
Do you need to track how much time a task or project is taking? Cashboard can help you with that. It works in conjunction with an online account and allows you to keep a time sheet. Just press start whenever you want it to start timing you. Once you’re done, go back and add a specific project and category to the task; you can also add notes. Next click on “Add Time Entry” and it will be sent to your Cashboard account. Although this is a premium service they do have a free account, which is great if you’re just looking for a simple time management tool.
Apple Dashboard
GAget
GAget is a beautiful Google Analytics widget for your dashboard. It shows you all of the important data so that you can keep up daily without having to use a browser. Although the widget automatically refreshes on its own, you can also refresh manually. GAget lets you switch between profiles, change the current chart (visitors, new visitors rate, bouncers rate), view data from up to four weeks back, and much more. It’s a must have for any website owner, blogger or Web developer.
Mac Dashboard Widgets Weather
What are your favorite dashboard widgets for macbook? Which one(s) do you use the most?