![](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/7c6fd082-22f3-4acf-ac27-a373bf635b6d.png)
How to Make a Killer Data Dashboard with Google Sheets
Dmitry Pashkevich
Reading time: about 9 min
Topics:
- How much progress have we made so far?
- Are we on track to hit the goal?
Reach 500 installs in the first 3 months.This goal will be your team’s success metric that you will include in reports to stakeholders and review at staff meetings. Experience has taught you that in order to drastically increase your chances for success, you need to consistently track progress. This idea brings us to the obvious first step.
Step 1: Begin tracking
Let’s start a new spreadsheet to track the number of installs of the app over time.![Step One Spreadsheet](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/34c38d0f-7d0e-467a-9293-0d6060d6093e.png?height=221&width=351)
Step 2: Create your first chart
Let’s begin harnessing the power of visual communication by creating our first chart. Here is the default chart (a line graph in this case) that Google Sheets produced for me:![data spreadsheet](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/0fbd152e-4ec8-47c3-bb18-8bb5d3b0e905.png?height=528&width=958)
Step 3: Show the goal
Here’s the (self-coined) Golden Rule of Data Visualization:Data visualization should be self-sufficient and self-explanatory.In other words, the data dashboard chart should be easy to understand and contain all the information about the performance of the metric(s) being tracked. In our case, the chart must include the goal. Let’s add a new Goal column and add it into the chart’s data range. Check the checkbox Plot null values (in Chart style) so that the first and the last data points in the Goal column get connected with a solid line.
![data spreadsheet with goal and date column](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/c3e6c10d-88dc-4d2d-909c-53e5b57d33e3.png?height=258&width=449)
![data dashboard with goal line](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/474c2460-0a67-492a-8569-69d7ef6a531c.png?height=371&width=600)
Step 4: Make sure you include the entire goal
Let’s review our goal one more time:Reach 500 installs in the first 3 monthsOur data dashboard already visualizes the target number of installs, but the second part of the goal hasn’t been captured yet. The chart always ends at the last data point available and doesn’t show how much time is left. Consequently, we still can’t answer the simple business question posed in the beginning: “Are we on track to hit the goal?” We need to have the chart show the entire time period defined in the goal statement. To do this, we’ll populate the date column all the way until the end of the period in question.
![pre-populated spreadsheet](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/05ad5d12-722d-4a86-84e9-4a4a49821ff2.png?height=360&width=450)
![data dashboard with entire time period](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/01f6179d-e0f2-44a7-b751-e00b008591b9.png?height=371&width=600)
Step 5: Visualize the trend
While our data dashboard is already very informative, it may still be hard to gauge how many installs we’re going to have by the end of the time period, provided we continue at the same rate. We can have Google Sheets use simple mathematical extrapolation to “predict” how our metric will behave in the future based on existing data points. Easily enable this prediction by checking the “Trendline” checkbox for the corresponding data series:![chart with linear trendline](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/e85fdcfd-037e-4a97-8a08-653b974e05a2.png?height=681&width=1119)
![ideal path chart](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/64c91c51-0322-46e9-a174-01fc66cf4400.png?height=314&width=546)
![install vs date](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/99ae20a0-c48e-4450-9826-78f0ddd8d497.png?height=371&width=600)
Step 6: Make it TV-friendly
The effect of putting your team’s key metrics on the wall is profound. Your teammates don’t have to remember to check the key performance indicators by digging up the right spreadsheets or emails. Having this information in front of them inspires more frequent data-centric conversations and cultivates a more data-driven approach within the organization. Time to make our data dashboard ready for the big screen! Put the chart on its own sheet and resize it to roughly match the resolution of the TV you’re going to use (it’ll take some experimenting). To remove the odd white padding around the chart, check Maximize in Chart style.![TV-friendly chart](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/4e53871d-0635-4202-94eb-67709d039553.png?height=1050&width=1760)
- Increase the font size of titles and labels.
- Remove labels that are unnecessary (e.g. axis titles).
- Increase line thickness for improved readability.
- Change colors for better contrast.
- Tweak the grid lines.
![final data dashboard](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/31c8600b-e5ad-4005-99a3-9656839579a6.png?height=997&width=1613)
Final step: Publish
Google Sheets has a handy feature to publish your document as a web page, easily accessible via a link, with all the editor UI hidden. Go to File > Publish to the web and select the sheet with the chart.![publish chart](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/2deef7f0-a2c8-473e-b8ab-aa0161a901d5.png?height=550&width=615)
![data dashboard on TV](https://corporate-assets.lucid.co/co/b0c1acbb-cc9c-4e51-80a9-d7d58beee84a.jpg?height=1513&width=1999)
About Lucid
Lucid Software is a pioneer and leader in visual collaboration dedicated to helping teams build the future. With its products—Lucidchart, Lucidspark, and Lucidscale—teams are supported from ideation to execution and are empowered to align around a shared vision, clarify complexity, and collaborate visually, no matter where they are. Lucid is proud to serve top businesses around the world, including customers such as Google, GE, and NBC Universal, and 99% of the Fortune 500. Lucid partners with industry leaders, including Google, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Since its founding, Lucid has received numerous awards for its products, business, and workplace culture. For more information, visit lucid.co.