How to Create a Report in Excel

Building a report in Excel can feel like a daunting task, but it’s really just about telling a story with your data. This article will walk you through the entire process, from structuring your raw data to creating a polished, interactive report that clearly communicates your key insights.

Start with a Strong Foundation: Prepare Your Data

Before you can build any charts or summaries, your data needs to be clean and organized. The best report in the world is useless if it's based on messy, unreliable information. A little bit of prep work here will save you hours of headaches later.

Organize Your Data in a Proper Table Structure

For Excel to understand your data, you need to set it up in a simple, tabular format. This means:

• One Header Row: Your first row should contain unique, descriptive titles for each column (e.g., "Date," "Region," "Sales Amount," "Product Category").
• No Blank Rows or Columns: Keep your dataset as a single, contiguous block of information.
• Consistent Data Types: Make sure each column contains the same type of data. The "Date" column should only have dates, and the "Sales Amount" column should only have numbers.

Here’s an example of a well-structured dataset:

Date | Region | Sales Rept | Product Category | Units Sold | Sales Amount 1/5/2024 | North | Sarah | Gadgets | 10 | $1,500 1/5/2024 | West | John | Software | 5 | $2,500 1/6/2024 | North | Sarah | Accessories | 25 | $500

Turn Your Data Range into an Excel Table

Once your data is organized, the next step is to convert it into an official Excel Table. This is not just a cosmetic change, it's a powerful feature that makes your data much easier to manage and analyze.

Here’s why you should always use Tables:

• Automatic Expansion: When you add new rows of data, the table automatically expands to include them, ensuring your reports and charts are always up to date.
• Easy Formatting: Tables come with built-in styling, making them easy to read with alternating colored rows.
• 'Total Row' Feature: With a single click, you can add a total row that can calculate sums, averages, counts, and more.

To create a Table, simply click anywhere inside your data range and press Ctrl + T (or go to Insert > Table on the ribbon). A small window will pop up, make sure the "My table has headers" box is checked, and click OK.

Analyze Your Data with PivotTables

Now for the fun part. PivotTables are the engine of Excel reporting. They allow you to rapidly summarize tens of thousands of rows of data into a concise, meaningful report without writing a single formula.

Creating Your First PivotTable

With an Excel Table, creating a PivotTable is incredibly easy.

1. Click anywhere inside your Table.
2. Go to the "Table Design" tab on the ribbon (this tab only appears when you're clicked into a Table).
3. Click "Summarize with PivotTable."
4. A dialog box will appear. The default settings (placing the PivotTable in a new worksheet) are usually what you want, so just click "OK."

Excel will create a new sheet with an empty PivotTable placeholder. On the right side of your screen, you'll see the "PivotTable Fields" pane. This is your control center for the report.

Building the Report Structure

The "PivotTable Fields" pane is divided into two main sections: a list of all your columns (fields) at the top, and four boxes at the bottom (Filters, Columns, Rows, and Values). This is where you tell Excel how to arrange your data.

• Rows: Fields you drag here will appear as row labels down the left side of your report. Example: Sales Rept, Product Category.
• Columns: Fields dragged here will create columns across the top of your report. Example: Region, Year.
• Values: This is where you put the numbers you want to calculate (sum, count, average, etc.). This is almost always a numerical field. Example: Sales Amount, Units Sold.
• Filters: Fields here create a dropdown filter for the entire report. Example: Month.

Let's build a simple report using our sales data example. Say you want to see the total sales for each Sales Rept in each region. You would just drag and drop the fields:

• Drag "Region" to the Rows area.
• Drag "Sales Rept" directly under "Region" in the Rows area.
• Drag "Sales Amount" to the Values area.

Instantly, Excel generates a report showing the total sales for each rep, neatly grouped by region. You've just condensed your entire dataset into a simple summary in seconds.

Bring Your Data to Life with Charts

Numbers in a table are great, but a visual chart often tells the story much faster. Creating a chart from your PivotTable, known as a PivotChart, is the next step to building a compelling report.

Create a PivotChart

A PivotChart is directly linked to your PivotTable, which means it will automatically update whenever your PivotTable data changes.

1. Click anywhere inside your completed PivotTable.
2. Go to the "PivotTable Analyze" tab on the ribbon.
3. Click "PivotChart."
4. Choose a chart type that best represents your data. For comparing totals, a Column or Bar chart is usually effective. For trends over time, a Line chart is ideal. Click OK.

A chart will appear on the same sheet. You can instantly see which regions or reps are performing best with a quick glance.

Making Your Chart Clear and Professional

The default Excel chart is a good start, but a little formatting goes a long way. Here are a few tips to make your chart easier to read:

• Powerful Title: Change the generic "Total" title to something descriptive, like "Total Sales by Region."
• Remove Clutter: You can often remove field buttons directly on the chart (like the gray "Region" and "Sum of Sales" buttons) for a cleaner look. Right-click on a field button and select "Hide All Field Buttons on Chart."
• Add Data Labels: Sometimes it's helpful to see the exact numbers on the chart itself. Click the green plus (+) icon next to the chart and check "Data Labels."
• Sort Your Data: Make the chart even easier to interpret by sorting your data in descending or ascending order. Right-click on a value in your pivot table, go to "Sort," and choose "Largest to Smallest." The chart will instantly update to reflect the change.

Add Interactivity with Slicers and Timelines

Now it's time to transform your static report into a dynamic one. Slicers are user-friendly buttons that allow you, or anyone you share the report with, to easily filter the data in your PivotTable and PivotChart - all without needing to understand the PivotTable Fields pane.

Insert a Slicer

Let's say you want to quickly filter your sales report by "Product Category."

1. Click on your PivotTable.
2. Go to the "PivotTable Analyze" tab.
3. Click "Insert Slicer."
4. A dialog box will appear with all your data fields. Check the box for "Product Category" (and any others you want) and click "OK."

You’ll now have a floating panel with buttons for each of your product categories. When you click "Gadgets," your PivotTable and PivotChart will instantly update to show data only for gadget sales. Click "Software," and everything changes again. Click the red ‘X’ icon at the top of the slicer to clear the filter.

If you have a date field, you can also use a Timeline, which is a special type of slicer just for dates and provides a more intuitive way to filter by years, quarters, months, or days.

Putting It All Together: Your First Excel Dashboard

A dashboard is simply a single-screen view that brings together your most important charts and metrics, allowing you to see your performance at a glance. You have all the pieces now, it’s just a matter of assembling them.

Assemble Your Dashboard

1. Create a New Sheet: Start with a fresh, blank worksheet and name it "Dashboard." This will be the main view of your report.
2. Build Multiple Reports: Back on your data sheets, create a few key PivotTables and PivotCharts. For example, you might create one for Sales by Region, another for Sales by Product, and a third showing a monthly sales trend.
3. Copy, Don’t Move: Go to each chart you want on your dashboard, copy it (Ctrl + C), and paste it (Ctrl + V) onto your "Dashboard" sheet. Arrange them in a logical way that's easy to read.
4. Add Slicers: Insert slicers for the main filters you need (like Year and Region) directly onto the “Dashboard” sheet.
5. Connect Your Slicers: This is a key step! You'll want one Slicer button to control all of your different charts at once. Right-click on your Slicer, choose "Report Connections," and in the pop-up window, check the boxes for every PivotTable you want this slicer to control. Do this for each slicer on your dashboard.

Now, when you click a button on your Year slicer, all of the related charts on your dashboard will update simultaneously, giving you a powerful, unified view of your business performance.

Refreshing Your Report Data

It's important to remember that reports in Excel are not truly 'live.' When you add new data to your source Excel Table, you have to tell your PivotTables to update.

Luckily, it's simple. Just go to the Data tab on the ribbon and click "Refresh All." This will update all PivotTables in your workbook to include the latest data and all of your charts and dashboard components will automatically reflect these changes.

Final Thoughts

From organizing your raw information in an Excel Table to summarizing it with PivotTables, visualizing with charts, and creating an interactive dashboard with slicers, you now have a repeatable process for transforming data into clear, actionable reports. Excel is an incredibly powerful tool for analysis, but as your needs grow, the process of downloading CSVs and manually refreshing reports can eat up valuable time.

At our core, we believe getting insights from your data should be faster and more intuitive. That's why we built Graphed to automate this entire workflow. Instead of manual data prep and pivot tables, you can connect directly to your sources like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce. From there, you just ask questions in plain English - like "show me top-selling products by region as a bar chart" - and instantly get live, automatically-refreshing dashboards, freeing you up to act on your insights instead of just hunting for them.