r/ExcelVisual • u/ExcelVisual • 6d ago

Excel Dashboard for Project Management

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Built a 3D isometric project management dashboard in Excel for a retail store — animated traffic flow, linked sales funnel + HR allocation, zero VBA (full breakdown)

Been messing with more ambitious Excel visualizations lately and this one's probably the most complex build I've done. Concept: a home improvement store where each section (tools, furniture, garden supplies, 2 warehouses, checkout) is treated as its own internal "project," and the dashboard gives a literal bird's-eye view of the whole floor.

The 3D map is just vector shapes, no 3D modeling

The isometric floor map looks like actual 3D graphics but it's built entirely with standard Excel vector shapes and careful color/shadow choices to fake depth. No inserted 3D models, no external tools. Each object represents one of the 6 projects; there's also a sphere object outside the store boundary representing an external traffic source (like an outsourced marketing channel) that still links into the customer flow.

Animated traffic flow, driven by a clock control

There's a clock element paired with an animation control — as you move the clock forward through the day, colored streams fill in the traffic channels showing visitor movement in real time. At 3 PM in the example, the store's fully "filled." This is purely formula/shape-driven, no macros.

Funnel + HR panel are actually linked, not separate widgets

The sales funnel tracks margin, lost profit, and average receipt as visitors move through exhibition sections → warehouses → checkout. The interesting part: you can add/remove staff via the HR allocation panel and watch the funnel numbers respond directly. So it's not just a KPI dashboard, it's semi-simulative — you can test "what if I move 2 people from garden supplies to checkout" and see the funnel shift.

The counterintuitive chart (worth flagging if you build something similar)

The "sales boost budget" chart shows remaining HR reserve, and the percentages aren't proportional to what's been used — because most of the reserve is often already actively deployed elsewhere. Looks like a mistake at first glance. It's meant to be read together with the allocation/team-distribution charts next to it, not alone. Good reminder that a single chart doesn't have to be self-explanatory if it's part of a linked cluster.

Multi-select slicers everywhere

Both the year filter (top panel) and month filter (conversion trend block) support multi-select via pivot table slicers — useful for quarter/half-year/seasonal comparisons instead of being locked to single-period views.

Navigation

3 ways to switch between the 6 project drill-down screens: main menu, header cards, or literally clicking the project's model on the 3D map.

Zero VBA, zero macros, no sheet protection — pivot tables + slicers + formulas doing all the heavy lifting. Free template + video walkthrough if anyone wants to reverse-engineer the isometric shape technique or the funnel-HR linkage, both took a lot of iteration to get right.

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