Executive Dashboard Development with Excel and AI
A two-day programme with an unusual structure: the same dataset is built into a dashboard twice, once by hand in Excel and once using AI tools, and the two are scored against each other. Most training on this subject either teaches Excel as though AI does not exist, or demonstrates AI as though the underlying analytical judgment no longer matters. Neither prepares anyone for the actual decision, which is knowing when to reach for which.
Day one is Excel: preparing data, building the components, and designing something an executive can read in ten seconds. Day two rebuilds the same dashboard using AI assistance, and the comparison scorecard at the end is the point of the course. Participants leave able to build either way, and with a defensible view on where AI genuinely saves time and where it produces a confident answer nobody should sign off on.
HRD Corp SBL-Khas Claimable
Programme Agenda
Day 1, 9:00 AM - 9:15 AM
Welcome and Programme Overview
Introduction to the session, objectives, and housekeeping.
Day 1, 9:15 AM - 10:15 AM
Introduction to Business Dashboards
What a dashboard is for, and why most of them fail. The difference between a dashboard, a report and an analysis, which organisations routinely conflate. Choosing the small number of measures that drive a decision instead of displaying everything available. Designing for the person who has ten seconds, not for the person who built it.
Day 1, 10:15 AM - 10:30 AM
Break
Day 1, 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Preparing Data for Dashboards
The work that determines whether everything downstream holds. Structuring source data as a proper table, handling nulls, correcting types, and splitting or combining fields. Power Query for repeatable transformation, so next month's refresh is not a manual rebuild. Why a dashboard built on a badly shaped source is a maintenance liability regardless of how it looks.
Day 1, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Building Components: PivotTables, Slicers and KPIs
PivotTables and PivotCharts as the analytical engine. Calculated fields and measures. Slicers and timelines for interactivity. Building KPI displays with conditional formatting and sparklines. Connecting multiple PivotTables to one slicer so the whole dashboard moves together, which is the step that turns a set of charts into a dashboard.
Day 1, 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch
Day 1, 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Designing Interactive Dashboards
Layout and visual hierarchy: what goes top left, what earns space, what gets cut. Choosing chart types that answer the question rather than decorate the page. Colour used to carry meaning, and designing for the colour vision your audience actually has. Building for the screen it will genuinely be viewed on. Protecting the workbook so users cannot break it accidentally.
Day 1, 3:15 PM - 3:30 PM
Break
Day 1, 3:30 PM - 4:45 PM
Day 1 Build
Participants complete an executive dashboard in Excel from the supplied dataset, working to a brief, and present it for critique against the design principles covered.
Day 1, 4:45 PM - 5:00 PM
Day 1 Close
Recap and what to review before day two.
Day 2, 9:00 AM - 9:15 AM
Day 1 Review
Recap of day one and the questions it left open.
Day 2, 9:15 AM - 10:15 AM
Building Dashboards with AI
Rebuilding the same dashboard with AI assistance. Prompting for analysis, chart generation and calculation. Using AI to write formulas, Power Query steps and VBA. What the current generation of tools does genuinely well here, and the specific ways they go wrong with numbers, which is different from how they go wrong with text.
Day 2, 10:15 AM - 10:30 AM
Break
Day 2, 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Verifying AI Output
The discipline that makes the previous module safe. Tracing every AI-produced figure back to the source data. Recognising a plausible wrong answer, which is the failure mode that matters, because an implausible one is caught immediately. Deciding what an executive dashboard may and may not have generated for it, and what has to be checked before anything is signed off.
Day 2, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Excel versus AI Comparison Scorecard
Scoring both builds head to head on speed, accuracy, transparency, repeatability, maintainability and how defensible each is when someone asks where a number came from. Participants complete the scorecard themselves and argue the result, which produces a more durable position than being told one.
Day 2, 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch
Day 2, 1:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Automation, Refresh and Handover
Making the dashboard survive its author. Refreshing from source, scheduling updates, documenting the calculation logic, and version control. Handover so a colleague can maintain it. Where AI helps with documentation, and where the effort of explaining what you want exceeds the effort of doing it.
Day 2, 3:15 PM - 3:30 PM
Break
Day 2, 3:30 PM - 4:45 PM
Capstone Project
Participants build a dashboard from their own organisation's data, or from a supplied alternative, choosing deliberately where to use Excel and where to use AI, then present it and justify each choice to the group.
Day 2, 4:45 PM - 5:00 PM
Wrap-Up and Q&A
Key takeaways, next steps, and close.
Key Outcomes
- Distinguish a dashboard from a report, and select the few measures that drive a decision
- Prepare and shape source data with Power Query so refresh is repeatable
- Build PivotTables, slicers and KPI displays that move together as one dashboard
- Design layout, chart choice and colour so an executive reads it in seconds
- Use AI to accelerate analysis, formulas and chart building
- Verify AI output against source data and recognise a plausible wrong answer
- Judge for a given task whether Excel or AI is the defensible choice
Training Mode Physical / Online / Hybrid / e-learning
HRD Corp SBL-Khas Claimable
Level Intermediate. Suitable for finance, operations, sales and management staff who build or present reports. Comfortable working in Excel is assumed, including PivotTables. No coding or prior AI experience required.
Duration 2 Days (16 Hours) | 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM daily
Venue In-house at the client's premises, or delivered via the client's preferred platform (Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or equivalent)
Assessment Two completed dashboards from one dataset, a completed Excel versus AI comparison scorecard, and a presented capstone dashboard
Certificate Certificate of Completion issued to all participants upon full attendance