Compare Sales Forecast with Actual

If you're showing a relationship between variables, the column chart type is
probably not a great choice. If your problem is the starting point of chart
series, well, XY series don't care, but line or column series need you to
space out the later-starting series with blanks. It's illustrated in this
post:

http://peltiertech.com/WordPress/200...area-charts-1/

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com
_______


"RichUE" wrote in message
...
Now that I have a working chart (thanks to the forum members), am I
'stuck'
with an XY scatter chart to superimpose two different X-Y relationships?
Is
it possible to change one of the scatter charts to a column style? When
I've
tried this for the Actual chart, the columns use the X parameters from the
Forecast chart instead. Thius gives wrong information because the Actual
sales values are taken on different dates from Forecast sales.
--
Richard

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"RichUE" wrote:

Thanks, Jon. All the markers are connected now.
--
Richard

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"Jon Peltier" wrote:

You mean the markers are not connected by lines? If the cells between
the
data points are actual blank cells (not "" returned by a formula), then
go
to Tools menu Options Chart tab, and choose the Interpolate option
for
dealing with blank cells.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services, Inc.
774-275-0064
208-485-0691 fax

http://PeltierTech.com/
_______


"RichUE" wrote in message
...
I changed the Chart Type to XY so now I can compare two XY plots -
thanks.
I'm just puzzled that the points on each XY plot are not joined up. I
used
the 'joined up' chart version. Specifically, two of the forecast
series
are
joined (3 not), and three of the actual series (3 not).
--
Richard

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"Jon Peltier" wrote:

If you make an XY chart, not a line chart, this will not happen.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com
_______


"RichUE" wrote in message
...
Jon

I tried your suggestion, but the new series seems to use the X
range of
the
pre-existing series.
--
Richard

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"Jon Peltier" wrote:

Rather than two separate charts, use one chart, of type XY, with
two
separate sets of XY data. Make the chart with one set of XY data,
then
copy
the other set, select the chart, and use Paste Special to add the
data
as
a
new series, with category data in the first column (or row).

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com
_______


"RichUE" wrote in message
...
I want to generate two superimposed line charts to represent,
during
a
particular month:
a) forecast sales (accumulated)
b) actual sales as they are taken (accumulated)

I want to be able to directly compare the progress of actual
sales
with
the
forecast, and a prediction of month end sales.

The forecast sales values and expected dates are entered at the
start
of
the
month. The actual sales are entered daily by checking a
separate
resource
and
entering sales values and corresponding dates. Multiple sales
values
may
be
forecast and taken on the same date.

By the end of the month, in an ideal scenario, all the forecast
sales
values
will have been entered in the actual column at the forecast
date and
the
actual total will match the forecast total. In practice,
however,
the
actual
dates may vary from the forecast dates, and perhaps not all the
sales
will
have been taken. The shortfall should be obvious from the
chart.

This sounds to me like two separate charts, because although
the
range
of
dates (month start to month end) is the same for forecast and
actual, I
can't
use a single column date range for both.

Any advice please?
I'm sure this must have already been done, but I've looked at
online
templates and not found anything suitable.

I'm using Excel 2003.
--
Richard

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