How to Create a Panel Chart in Excel

Create a Panel Chart in Excel

To show a concise, clear summary of data for several departments or cities, you can create a panel chart in Excel. It shows all the data in a single chart, with vertical lines separating the groups.

My Panel Chart in Excel

My panel chart shows sales for bars and cookies, in four cities, over the first 7 months of the current year.

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I learned this technique from Jon Peltier’s website, where he also sells an Excel Chart Utility, that creates complex charts quickly.

Panel Chart Steps

The instructions for making a panel chart look long and complicated, and I’ve avoided learning this technique, because it was a daunting process.

Last week, I finally took the plunge, and it’s not so bad, once you get the big picture in your head. We can group the instructions into the following main steps:

  • Add a separator field to the source data
  • Summarize the data in a pivot table
  • Copy the pivot table data as values
  • Create a line chart from the copied data
  • Add another series to create vertical dividing lines
  • Add final formatting to clean up the chart

There is an overview of the steps below, and you can see the detailed instructions on my Contextures website: Excel Panel Charts

Or, follow along as I build a line panel chart in the video, further down in this article.

Add a separator field

The secret to separating the groups in a panel chart is “staggering” the data in the pivot table. Instead of having all the data in a single column, it is broken into two columns, by adding a “Stagger” field in the source data.

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Summarize the data

After adding the “Stagger” field, create a pivot table from the data, with City and Order date in the Row area, Stagger and Category in the Column area, and Total Sales in the Values area.

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Copy the pivot table data

After the pivot table is finished, copy the data, and paste it as formatted numbers on another worksheet.

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Create a line chart

Using the copied data, create a line chart, and format the two sets of series so they look the same.

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Create vertical dividing lines

Add another series to the line chart, and add error bars to create vertical lines between the cities.

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Clean up the chart formatting

Finally, fix the chart formatting, so everything looks clean and clear. The dates are formatted to show a single letter, gridlines are faded and further apart, the secondary axis is hidden, and a few others things were fixed. In Jon’s version of the chart he moved the city names to the top, but I was too tired when I got to that step! I think they look fine at the bottom. 😉

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Watch the Panel Chart Video

To see the steps for creating a line panel chart, watch this video tutorial.

Download the Sample File

To see the sample data, and the completed chart, you can download the sample file from my Contextures website: Excel Panel Charts. The detailed instructions are also on that page.

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