This is a doozy...

I don't even know where to begin with this one. I have information that
needs to go into some form of a chart--any chart. I need to show the number
of departments in several buildings that are compliant with rules from Jan
thru April. Basically, from what I can see, I need to have three axis:
month, building, and number. What graph should I use and how should I go
about doing this?

one possibilty would be to set up a column with buildings duplicating the
name of the building for the number of months you are interested in.
the next column put the months and copy down for each building
in the thrd column place the percentage number for each month/building.
Plot the percentage numbers and go inot <Chart><Source data>< series>
and select the first two columns for catagory X axis lables.

"Jen Kulak" wrote:

> I don't even know where to begin with this one. I have information that
> needs to go into some form of a chart--any chart. I need to show the number
> of departments in several buildings that are compliant with rules from Jan
> thru April. Basically, from what I can see, I need to have three axis:
> month, building, and number. What graph should I use and how should I go
> about doing this?

You have any number of choices.

Create a 3D surface chart with months and building on the x and y axis
and the #departments as the value (z) axis.

Organize your data as
M1 B1 #dept
B2 #dept
B3 #dept
M2 B1 #dept
....

and create a column/line chart with the first 2 columns as the x-values.

Exchange the first two columns to get a somewhat different layout.

If your data are in tabular format, create a PivotTable (and chart).
You will automatically get the above chart.

For something different, put the building ID on the x-axis and the
months on the y axis in a line or XY scatter plot (actually just a
number representing the month will do). So, if you have data for 3
buildings and 5 months you would plot

B1 1 2 3 4 5
B2 1 2 3 4 5
B3 1 2 3 4 5

Remember you actually have 15 data points for #depts in compliance.
Plot those as data labels using XY Chartlabeler (www.appspro.com) or
ChartTools (www.j-walk.com).

You could even create little bars indicating #depts in compliance. Use
custom error bars, use both + and - y bars and set the values to 1/2 a
scaled value of #depts. How do you calculate the scaled value? Use
something that is aesthetically appealing. Start with #depts/maximum
#depts * 0.5

You can color code these error bars to show relative ranges. If the
#depts < some threshold, make the bars red. If between 2 threshold
values, yellow. Above a certain value, green.

Finally, you could use either horizontal or vertical floating bars a la
Floating bars in charts (http://www.tushar-
mehta.com/excel/newsgroups/floating_bars/index.html) or Waterfall chart
(http://www.tushar-mehta.com/excel/ch...fall/index.htm) These
would be more difficult to set up than using error bars but will give
you better format control.

--
Regards,

Tushar Mehta
www.tushar-mehta.com
Multi-disciplinary business expertise
+ Technology skills
= Optimal solution to your business problem
Recipient Microsoft MVP award 2000-2005

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> I don't even know where to begin with this one. I have information that
> needs to go into some form of a chart--any chart. I need to show the number
> of departments in several buildings that are compliant with rules from Jan
> thru April. Basically, from what I can see, I need to have three axis:
> month, building, and number. What graph should I use and how should I go
> about doing this?
>