Charts and Dashboards: Sales Funnel Chart – Part 2
8 October 2021
Welcome back to our Charts and Dashboards blog seriesThis week, I again create a Sales Funnel chart, but this time using Excel’s built-in features.
Until Excel 2016, Sales Funnel charts were not available as a standard chart. Last week, I looked at how to create the chart for users of older versions of Excel, and this week I compare that to the standard chart now available. The data I have selected for my chart is very simple: I am tracking down how many suppliers contacted by my salespeople actually end up delivering tent equipment to the company.
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To select the Excel Funnel chart, I can choose ‘Recommended Charts’ from the Insert tab.
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I can see that the Funnel chart is on the ‘Recommended Charts’ tab, so I can pick this.
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I can ‘Change Colors’ on the ‘Chart Design’ tab to quickly change the colour of all the bars so that it is the same as the manually created chart.
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Well this could be a very short blog. Having shown how easy it is to change the colour, let’s see what else I can change.
I can select each bar individually by double-clicking on it, and give it a different colour.
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Each bar may have a different colour:
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I can also change the shape of the bars, but this is more of a challenge. I go to the Insert tab, and choose SmartArt:
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This opens a dialog.
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I choose the Pyramid option:
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The second image looks like the Funnel chart, so I click this one:
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Clicking OK gives me an Inverted Pyramid:
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It doesn’t have enough bars yet, so I can click on ‘Add Shape’ in the ‘SmartArt Design’ tab, until I have six [6].
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This is all very well, but how does it link to my table of data? I can right-click on the shape, and I have options:
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I choose to ‘Convert to Shapes’.
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This shape would make a good Funnel chart. I can change the colours to match the Funnel chart I created:
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Now I want to copy each of the shapes in the Inverted Pyramid, and paste them into the Funnel Chart. To paste each shape in, I go to Fill in the ‘Format Data Point’ pane:
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When I choose ‘Picture or texture fill’ I have the option of using the Clipboard as the ‘Picture source’, so I do this:
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I repeat this for the other bars, and add a title: my Funnel chart is finished!
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That’s it for this week. Come back next week for more Charts and Dashboards tips.