As I mentioned in my original post, Exploring Excel 2013 as Microsoft’s BI Client, I will be posting tips regularly about using Excel 2013 and later.  Much of the content will be a result of my daily interactions with business users and other BI devs.  In order to not forget what I learn or discover, I write it down … here.  I hope you too will discover something new you can use.  Enjoy!

Creating a Combo Chart

Excel supports a couple of options for overlaying lines on bars or columns. The most common method is to use the combo chart. In this option, you would put metrics into the chart and then select which is the bar and which is the line. This is particularly helpful when using different types of metrics such as counts and percentages. To set this up, you create the initial chart with the metrics you want and then change the type. In the example below I have text and email usage counts with internet usage as a percentage in a column chart.

Select the Change Chart Type option on the PIVOTCHART TOOLS menu.

In the dialog that is opened, choose Combo Chart at the bottom. Excel will separate the values into lines and columns. In my case, it picked correctly, but be sure to check as it does not do what you want all the time. Because I am using percentages and counts, I want to have a secondary axis. My result is below. We can now look at percentages and counts in the same chart.

This functionality can only be used with column charts and lines or areas. The value is being able to show two types of data on the same chart. Up next, we will look at overlaying charts in Excel which gives you more design options for your dashboard.