How to Create a Goal Tracker in Excel
Tracking your goals is one of the most effective ways to achieve them, and a simple spreadsheet is one of the best tools for the job. Creating a goal tracker in Excel allows you to transform static objectives into a dynamic, visual report on your progress. This article will walk you through building a goal tracker, starting with a simple table and ending with a more advanced dashboard complete with automatic progress bars, checklists, and trend lines.
Getting Started: Why Use Excel for Goal Tracking?
While there are plenty of dedicated apps for goal tracking, Excel remains a popular choice for a few key reasons:
Accessibility: Most professionals already have access to Excel. There's no new software to buy or learn from scratch.
Customization: You have complete control. You can design your tracker to monitor anything from sales targets and marketing KPIs to project milestones and personal goals.
Visualization: Excel's built-in tools like conditional formatting and charts make it easy to create visual feedback, turning a boring table of numbers into a motivating dashboard.
The main drawback? It requires manual updates. But for many goals, that quick check-in is a valuable part of the review process.
Method 1: Building a Simple Goal Tracker with a Progress Bar
Let's start with a foundational tracker that calculates your progress and visualizes it automatically. This is perfect for high-level business goals like quarterly revenue targets or marketing campaign objectives.
Step 1: Set Up Your Columns
Open a new Excel spreadsheet and create the following headers in the first row:
Column A: Goal: A brief description of what you want to achieve.
Column B: Target: The final number you're aiming for. This is what success looks like.
Column C: Current Progress: The current value of your metric. This is the column you'll update regularly.
Column D: Percent Complete: This will be automatically calculated with a formula.
Step 2: Add Your Goals and Numbers
Fill in a few goals. For this example, we'll use some common marketing and sales objectives. Let's say your goals for the quarter are:
Generate 500 new leads.
Increase website traffic to 100,000 sessions.
Achieve $25,000 in monthly revenue.
Input these into your sheet, along with their target values and your current progress.
Step 3: Calculate the Percentage Complete
Now it's time for the first formula. To calculate the percentage of your goal completed, you divide your Current Progress by your Target.
Click on cell D2 and type the following formula:
=C2/B2
Press Enter. At first, it will probably show as a decimal (e.g., 0.50). To convert it to a percentage, select the entire Column D, go to the Home tab, and click the Percent Style (%) button in the Number section.
Now, click on the small green square in the bottom-right corner of cell D2 and drag it down to apply the formula to the rest of your goals.
Step 4: Add Visual Progress Bars using Conditional Formatting
This is where your tracker comes to life. A visual progress bar is far more motivating than just a number. We'll use a feature called Conditional Formatting.
Select all the cells in your "Percent Complete" column (D2, D3, D4, etc.).
On the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting > Data Bars > More Rules.
A dialog box will appear. Here's how to configure it to work correctly with percentages:
Under Format Style, make sure Data Bar is selected.
For the Minimum setting, change the Type to Number and set the Value to 0.
For the Maximum setting, change the Type to Number and set the Value to 1. (Excel treats 100% as the number 1.)
You can also pick your preferred color in this window under bar color. Then click OK.
Click OK
Your "Percent Complete" column now has progress bars that automatically fill up as you update your "Current Progress" number. You have a functional, visual, and motivating goal tracker!
Method 2: Creating a More Dynamic Goal Tracker with Checkboxes and Sparklines
For more detailed goals and longer-term projects, you might want to track individual tasks within your goal. This can be accomplished with checkboxes for tracking completion. Sparklines, which are like tiny graphs inside your spreadsheets, can provide visual information about a goal's performance over time.
Step 1: Set up Your New Columns
First, we'll want to create some additional columns:
A-B: Goal & End Date: Same concepts as in our simple tracker above.
C-G: Phase / Step Tasks: We dedicate more than one column as goals have various different steps to complete. We give ourselves from C-F, or 5 columns. Name these with a general step progression name, like "Step 1: Draft," or simply, "Step 1".
H: Percent Completion: This column houses our formulas to track our completed vs outstanding tasks.
I: Progress Over Time: Our sparklines or micro charts go here, giving a visual representation as goal's status changes over time.
Step 2: Adding Checkboxes for Tracking Tasks
To add interactive checkboxes:
Enabling the Developer Tab: This is hidden by default. Go to File > Options > Customize Ribbon and check the Developer box.
Insert Your Checkbox: With the Developer menu tab open, click Insert > Checkbox. Draw it in the desired cell and remove its text label "Check here".
Step 3: Using Formulas to Calculate Progress
Now that our checkboxes have been created and linked, it is time to create an automatically updating progress formula.
Count the Completed Tasks: In a column next to your progress tracker:
=COUNTIF(C2:G2, "TRUE")/COUNTA(C2:G2)
This formula will look at all the checkboxes and determine if they are selected ('TRUE').
Link the Progress: In the cell where you want your progress to appear (e.g., H2), use:
=H2
Show it as a number from our previous progress bar.
Step 4: Visualize Trends with Sparklines
Sparklines are mini charts that fit into a single cell, providing a clear visual of trends over time.
Select the cell where you want your sparkline.
Insert Sparkline > Line
You will be prompted to select your data. Here, we’ll use our percentage of completion data (e.g., H2 to H10).
Best Practices for Your Excel Tracker
Set SMART Goals: Ensure that your goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.
Keep It Updated: Regularly update your tracker to maintain accuracy. Set a calendar reminder to update your data at least weekly.
Final Thoughts
This tutorial guides you through building a goal tracker in Excel from a simple table with basic calculations to a dynamic setup including progress bars, checkboxes, and sparklines. Utilize these techniques to create a tracker that is functional and motivating.
For further enhancements, look into integrating your Excel file with external data sources like Salesforce or Shopify. Using Graphed, you can export Excel data to your dashboard, affording you real-time updates on goal performance.
Instead of remaining isolated to an Excel file, we make it easy to connect directly to your data sources like Shopify. With Graphed, you create a live dashboard that can impact performance in real-time.