Strategic Planning & Analysis Flashcards

A dashboard has three PivotTables from the same data source. How can one slicer filter all three?

Answer: Use Report Connections on the slicer to link the PivotTables

Report Connections (Filter Connections) lets a single slicer control multiple PivotTables that share a cache.

In a PivotTable showing sales by year, which Show Values As option displays year-over-year change as a percentage?

Answer: % Difference From

% Difference From compares each value to a base item, such as the previous year, and shows the percentage change.

Actual revenue is in B2 and budgeted revenue is in C2. Which formula returns the variance as a percentage of budget?

Answer: =(B2-C2)/C2

Budget variance % divides the difference between actual and budget by the budget amount.

Which sparkline type is best for showing only whether each month hit or missed a target, without showing magnitude?

Answer: Win/Loss

Win/Loss sparklines show only positive or negative outcomes as equal-height markers.

You want KPI cells to show green, yellow, or red symbols based on performance thresholds. Which feature is most appropriate?

Answer: Conditional formatting icon sets

Icon sets in conditional formatting show traffic-light symbols based on the value thresholds you set.

Which PivotTable filter control is designed specifically to filter by date periods such as years, quarters, months, or days?

Answer: Timeline

A Timeline is a date-specific filter that lets users select periods at different time levels.

A dashboard cell must always pull the East region total from a PivotTable, even if the layout changes. Which function should you use?

Answer: GETPIVOTDATA

GETPIVOTDATA looks up values by field and item names, so it keeps working when the PivotTable layout shifts.