A dashboard shows everything at once and lets the viewer explore. A story controls what the viewer sees and in what order — it is a guided presentation built from your existing worksheets and dashboards. This project turns the H1 2024 sales data from Lesson 49 into a five-point narrative story.
The Story We Are Telling
A good data story has a structure: context → finding → detail → implication → action. Each story point is one step in that arc. Before opening the Story tab, write the five beats on paper:
1
Context — H1 2024 overview
Show the full dashboard. Set the scene: $24,310 in sales, 15% margin, 20 orders across six months.
2
Finding — Technology dominates
Zoom to the Sales by Category chart. Technology is 58% of total revenue — more than Furniture and Office Supplies combined.
3
Detail — Furniture has a margin problem
Show a profit by sub-category view. Tables and Bookcases are losing money — annotate these two bars.
4
Implication — Growth is accelerating
Show the monthly trend. Sales in June were $5,870 vs $2,960 in January — annotate both endpoints.
5
Action — Where to focus in H2
Return to the full dashboard filtered to West region — the strongest region. Annotate the recommendation: grow Technology in West, review Furniture pricing.
Step 1 — Create the Additional Sheet for Point 3
Story point 3 needs a profit-by-sub-category view that does not exist yet. Build it before creating the story.
1
New sheet. Drag Sub-Category to Rows and Profit to Columns. Sort ascending so negative bars appear at the top — the losses are immediately visible.
2
Drag Profit to the Colour shelf. Edit colours: set the palette to Orange-Blue Diverging, centred on zero. Negative bars turn orange, positive bars turn blue.
3
Drag Profit to the Label shelf. Format as $#,##0;-$#,##0. Title: Tables and Bookcases Are Losing Money. Rename the tab Profit by Sub-Category.
Profit by Sub-Category — expected result
Step 2 — Create the Story
1
Click the New Story tab at the bottom (the book icon). The Story canvas opens with an empty story point and a navigator at the top.
2
Set the story size to match the dashboard: Story → Size → Automatic. This ensures the story canvas and the dashboard inside it share the same dimensions.
3
Double-click the story title at the top of the canvas and type: H1 2024 Sales Performance — What Happened and What To Do Next.
4
In the Story panel on the left, the Sheets section lists all available worksheets and dashboards. You will drag from here to populate each story point.
Step 3 — Story Point 1: Context
1
From the Story panel, drag the Sales Performance dashboard onto the first story point canvas. The full dashboard appears inside the story point.
2
Click the caption box above the navigator and type: H1 2024: $24K in sales across 4 regions. This is the navigator label the audience reads to navigate to this point.
3
Click Update to save this as the Saved state for story point 1. The point is now locked — any future exploration of the dashboard will not overwrite this view.
Step 4 — Story Point 2: Finding
1
Click Blank in the Story panel to add a new empty story point. From the sheets list, drag Sales by Category onto this canvas.
2
Add a Point annotation to the Technology bar: right-click the bar → Annotate → Point → type "58% of total revenue — more than the other two categories combined". Drag the annotation box to a clear area.
3
Set the caption to: Technology = 58% of total revenue. Click Update to save the annotated state.
Step 5 — Story Point 3: Detail
1
Add a Blank story point. Drag Profit by Sub-Category onto it.
2
Add a Mark annotation to the Tables bar: right-click → Annotate → Mark → type "Tables: -$115 loss". Repeat for Bookcases: "Bookcases: -$38 loss".
3
Add an Area annotation spanning both negative bars: right-click a blank area → Annotate → Area → drag to cover Tables and Bookcases → type "Furniture sub-categories dragging overall margin down". Set caption to: Furniture margin problem — Tables and Bookcases losing money. Click Update.
Story point 3 — annotation types used
Step 6 — Story Point 4: Implication
1
Add a Blank story point. Drag Monthly Trend onto it.
2
Add a Point annotation to the January data point: right-click the mark → Annotate → Point → type "Jan: $2,960". Repeat for June: "Jun: $5,870 — nearly doubled in 6 months".
3
Set caption to: Sales nearly doubled Jan → Jun — momentum is strong. Click Update.
Step 7 — Story Point 5: Action
1
Add a Blank story point. Drag the Sales Performance dashboard onto it again — this is a fresh instance of the same dashboard.
2
In the Region filter on the dashboard, select West only. The dashboard updates to show West-only data — KPIs, bar chart, trend, and region breakdown all filter.
3
Add an Area annotation on the Sales by Category chart covering the Technology bar: type "H2 priority: double down on Technology in West — $7,670 in H1 alone".
4
Set caption to: H2 recommendation: grow Technology in West, review Furniture pricing. Click Update.
Step 8 — Navigator Style and Final Polish
1
Go to Story → Format → Navigator. Set the style to Caption Boxes — each point shows its caption text as a tab, which is clearer for a 5-point story than dots or arrows.
2
Format → Story → set the background to #f8fafc to match the dashboard. Set navigator font to 12pt, matching the dashboard title font family.
3
Click through all five story points and verify: each caption reads correctly, each annotation is visible, no point shows an unsaved "Updated" state indicator. Fix any that need re-saving by clicking Update.
Finished story — navigator with caption boxes
📌 Teacher's Note
Most data stories end at the finding — they show what happened but leave the viewer to work out what to do next. Always plan the action point first, then build the story backward from it. Annotations are your most powerful tool: a single line like "this product loses us $115 per order" communicates urgency that no colour choice or chart type can match.
Practice Questions
1. After dragging a dashboard onto a story point and applying a Region filter, how do you lock that filtered state so it persists every time the audience views that story point?
2. Story point 3 uses all three annotation types. What is the difference between a Mark annotation and a Point annotation — and which is most appropriate for labelling a specific bar?
3. The story has five points with descriptive captions. Which navigator style shows the caption text directly in the navigator, and how do you apply it?
Quiz
1. The five story points in this project follow a narrative arc. In what order do they progress?
2. The Sales Performance dashboard is used on both story point 1 and story point 5. How can the same dashboard show different states on different story points?
3. Story point 3 needs a single annotation that covers both the Tables and Bookcases bars together with a group-level label. Which annotation type is appropriate and how is it drawn?
Next up — Lesson 51: Sales Analysis Project — a full end-to-end project applying YoY calculations, LOD expressions, rank heat maps, and scatter plots to answer six real business questions in one analytical dashboard.
