Designing professional executive dashboards is not always an easy task, especially without the proper tools. One of the applications that can help you in this regard is DashboardPlus, a simple Excel add-on that expands the capabilities of Microsoft's application to provide you with the necessary means to come up with the interactive dashboards you need.

The tool comes in a lightweight package and is very easy to install. However, you'll need to run it with administrator privileges to ensure a successful installation process.

As soon as the utility has been installed, you can enjoy its capabilities by firing up Excel and starting to create dashboards.

Courtesy of a series of integrated dashboards components, the add-on makes it easy for you to create new dashboards, while also allowing you to combine these with the features that are already available in Excel.

The gauges included in the utility are connected with all cell values, which ensures fast and simple implementation of flexible and dynamic dashboard solutions. The tool offers support for a wide range of complexity levels, and you can easily create the dashboards that you need.

In addition to being fully integrated with Microsoft Excel, the utility also provides you with the possibility to link your dashboards with external apps or databases, for increased convenience. The tool also allows users to copy dashboards to HTML files or PowerPoint presentations.

Full Excel integration ensures that all parameters attached to the components are saved in the Excel file and are automatically available when it is reopened, even for users who do not have a registered version of this add-on.

One thing that you should keep in mind, however, is that it might show some incompatibility issues when used with the latest versions of Excel. We tested it in Office 2013 and we had to force-close it a few times, as it became unresponsive.

All in all, DashboardPlus is a simple, lightweight add-on for Excel, meant to help you easily create dashboards without the need of another tool. It includes a series of components that provide it with increased flexibility, while also allowing you to combine these with the features already available in Excel.