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List of Data Analysis and Visualization Excel Add-Ons and Utilities

This is by no means an all-inclusive list of Excel add-ons.  If it were, the list would probably be in the thousands.  Here is Support Analytics’ short list of those we like and find very useful to data analysis and visualization in no particular order. 

  1. PTS
    1. Waterfall Chart Utility tools
    2. Chart Image Exporter
  2. DataPig 
    1. Excel Explosion (amazing tool)  
    2. Custom Button Builder
  3. JMT – Excel Utilities
  4. BonaVista Systems
    1. MicroCharts
    2. MicroCharts Chart Tamer (Coming soon)
    3. Parameter link
  5. Juice Analytics - Clean Charts (hard to find)
  6. J-Walk - Chart Tools
  7. ExcelUser - Bullet Charts (not an add-on, just tutorial)
  8. Bissantz - SparkMaker
  9. Microsoft - Treemapper
  10. AppsPro - XY Chart Labeler

Best of all, I believe there is a free version for each of the ones above.

I just scratched the surface with my list above.  If there are any utilities you use or find helpful, please share them here by submitting a comment with a link or emailing me.  I hope you find these utilities as valuable as I do.  A special thanks goes to each of the developers who made these tools available.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 8:15 am and is filed under Analytics, Excel, Tony, Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “List of Data Analysis and Visualization Excel Add-Ons and Utilities”

  1. David Gerbino Says:
    September 28th, 2008 at 10:30 pm

    I have used many of these tools and resources before. They are all top notch. If you have never used any of them you should explore them and revisit them as much as possible. Tony has shared some that I have not heard of and some I have always meant to try. And i will be hitting everyone of those links above.

    Here is my challenge number 1 to all the DSA Insight Readers. Visit all the above links and try out everything and report back to this blog post about your experiences.

    Here is my challenge number 2. If you have a site/product to help with data visualization for Excel or data extracted from Excel for a data warehouse share it.

    @dmgerbino

    [Reply]

  2. David Gerbino Says:
    September 28th, 2008 at 10:37 pm

    Here is my contribution to my Challenge # 2. I have been playing with Many Eyes at IBM’s Alphaworks site. So far I have been looking at the shared data and tried some dummy data of my own. The fact that it is shared has kept me from using it for work. Either way, I urge you to check it out. I copied the About section below. Here is the link.

    http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/home

    Check out the Cost of the US Government Bailouts:

    http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/view/SgjIIQsOtha6Ts1uot6TQ2~

    Please note that you will need to create a FREE IBM account to use this tool.

    About Many Eyes

    Many Eyes is a bet on the power of human visual intelligence to find patterns. Our goal is to “democratize” visualization and to enable a new social kind of data analysis. Jump right to our visualizations now, take a tour, or read on for a leisurely explanation of the project.

    All of us in CUE’s Visual Communication Lab are passionate about the potential of data visualization to spark insight. It is that magical moment we live for: an unwieldy, unyielding data set is transformed into an image on the screen, and suddenly the user can perceive an unexpected pattern. As visualization designers we have witnessed and experienced many of those wondrous sparks. But in recent years, we have become acutely aware that the visualizations and the sparks they generate, take on new value in a social setting. Visualization is a catalyst for discussion and collective insight about data.

    We all deal with data that we’d like to understand better. It may be as straightforward as a sales spreadsheet or fantasy football stats chart, or as vague as a cluttered email inbox. But a remarkable amount of it has social meaning beyond ourselves. When we share it and discuss it, we understand it in new ways.

    @dmgerbino

    [Reply]

  3. Fabrice Says:
    September 29th, 2008 at 4:03 pm

    Here is a free alternative to Bissantz Sparkmaker and Bonavista MicroChart : Sparklines for Excel –> http://sparklines-excel.blogspot.com/

    It includes 11 types of sparklines … and more to come

    [Reply]

  4. DSA Says:
    September 29th, 2008 at 9:31 pm

    Thanks David and Fabrice for the comments!

    I will give you my take one of the utilities that I use often. Mike Alexander’s (Datapig) Excel Explosion. Sounds kind of funny, but when you see it you will understand. What the add-on does is create a separate tab or file for each unique value within a range. I have found this very helpful when slicing a workbook up into separate files, which I can then attach to an email. Without this utility, I would need to copy/paste the records and deleting all but one, save the file, and then start over for the next value. This add-on does it all quickly and effortlessly. Seriously, check it out!

    [Reply]

  5. Excel Links of the Week [Sep 29] | Pointy Haired Dilbert - Chandoo.org Says:
    September 30th, 2008 at 9:40 am

    [...] List of all data visualization and analysis excel add-ins, The list includes some of the really useful add-ins. Handy bookmark if you work with data visualization alot and need to know where to find good stuff to add to your excel capabilities. [...]

  6. DSA Insights » Blog Archive » Support Analytics - Best of 2008 Says:
    December 29th, 2008 at 7:31 am

    [...] List of Data Analysis and Visualization Excel Add-Ons and Utilities [...]

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