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I’ve built a lot of dashboards in Google Sheets. Sometimes out of necessity, sometimes because it seemed like the fastest and most convenient option. One time, I needed a quick way to track weekly campaign performance across paid, organic, and email channels. I threw the data into Sheets, built a few charts, and had a working marketing dashboard ready in under an hour. It wasn’t fancy, but it worked.
But as our team grew, campaigns got bigger, and data piled up, Google Sheets started to fall apart. Charts stopped loading, formulas broke, and keeping things updated became a full-time job. That’s when I realized this work isn’t just about building dashboards; it's about using tools that scale with your work.
In this post, I show you how to build a dashboard in Google Sheets, where it works best, and when it’s time to switch to something like Teamwork.com for a smarter workflow.
What is a Google Sheets dashboard?
A Google Sheets dashboard is a visual summary of data you have manually entered into spreadsheets. It takes raw numbers from your sheets and turns them into easy-to-read charts, tables, and metrics, all in one place.
5 benefits of using a Google Sheets dashboard
Google Sheets dashboards help teams understand their data. Whether you're a project manager, marketer, or operations lead, a well-built dashboard can save time, reduce errors, and give you the insights you need to move a project forward. Here are five benefits of using a Google Sheets dashboard:
See your data in real time: Dashboards update automatically when data changes in your sheets. Seeing these updates in real time is great for spotting problems early and noticing when something’s going well. This helps your team stay in sync and move faster.
Easy to build: You don’t have to be a data expert to make a Google Sheets dashboard. With basic features like charts, filters, and colors, you can easily create a dashboard that works for you. It only takes a bit of time to set up, and you can change it anytime. Need to add a new goal or update a number? Just edit the sheet.
Shareable: Since it’s on Google Sheets, your dashboard lives in the cloud. You can give anyone on your team access to view or edit it from anywhere. If someone has a question or idea, they can leave a comment right in the sheet. It makes teamwork flow and keeps everyone on the same page.
Saves time on reporting: Instead of making reports from scratch every week, let your dashboard do the work. Once it’s set up, you just update your sheets, and the dashboard will update too. This gives you more time to study your data and plan what to do next.
Helps you make better decisions: When you see your data in charts or tables, it’s easier to notice trends or spot issues. Maybe something’s slowing you down, or maybe a project is ahead of schedule—the dashboard shows it all. You don’t have to guess anymore, or do any manual calculations.
How to make a Google Sheets dashboard
Creating a dashboard in Google Sheets might sound tricky, but it’s actually pretty straightforward. Here’s how to do it step by step:
Organize your data: Your data should be in rows and columns, with clear labels at the top (like “Date,” “Task,” or “Status”). Avoid merged cells and make sure all the data types match. For example, all dates in one column, all tasks in another. If your data comes from different sources, gather it all into one sheet, and use multiple tabs to keep it organized.
Decide what you want to see: Think about what questions your dashboard should answer. Do you want to track progress? See totals? Highlight trends? Pick a few key metrics or KPIs that matter most to your team or project. My biggest tip for this is to focus on what’s useful and shows value. Don’t try to combine every single data set into one dashboard.
Create a separate tab for your dashboard: Add a new tab in your Google Sheets file and name it something like “Dashboard 1.0.” This is where you’ll display all the charts, tables, and summaries. Keep this sheet clean. No raw data here, just visuals and important numbers. You’ll pull data from the other tabs and sheets using formulas like =SUM(), =QUERY(), or =FILTER().
Use formulas to pull key numbers: Common formulas include SUM(), AVERAGE(), COUNTIF(), and QUERY(). These help you create things like task totals, percentages, or progress summaries. You can also add conditional formatting to highlight good or bad results (like red for overdue tasks). The goal here is to show the most important data at a glance.
Add charts and visuals: Use the “Insert” menu to add charts based on your key data. Bar charts, line charts, and pie charts work great for showing trends, comparisons, or categories. Keep each chart simple and clear. Avoid too many colors or labels. You can also use sparklines for mini-charts or progress bars using conditional formatting.
Clean up and format your dashboard: Now make it easy to read. Add titles, labels, and maybe a bit of color to separate sections or categories. Make sure everything lines up neatly so people can find and identify information easily. Use bold text or colored boxes to highlight key metrics. The goal is to make your dashboard look clean, not crowded.
Share it with your team: Once your dashboard is ready, share with your team. Use “View only” if you don’t want others to make changes. You can also protect the dashboard tab so only certain people can edit it. Add a quick guide or notes if needed, so your team knows how to use it. Now everyone stays on the same page with the latest info.
Limitations of using a Google Sheets dashboard
Google Sheets dashboards are a great starting point, especially for small teams or quick reports, but they come with some limits. If your team is growing or your projects are getting more complex, you might quickly find yourself needing something better. Here are key limitations of Google sheets dashboards, and why Teamwork.com might be a better fit:
Not ideal for large data sets: Google Sheets can slow down with large amounts of data or too many formulas. Dashboards start lagging, loading gets slower, and the risk of crashing goes up. They’re fine for basic overviews, but not when you need to report on lots of tasks, teams, or projects at once.
Teamwork.com turns your project data—big or small—into real-time reporting insights that can be shared and acted on internally or with clients.
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Manual set up and maintenance: Everything in Google Sheets, from formulas to formatting, has to be built by hand. It works, but it takes time and breaks easily if something changes.
With Teamwork.com, you don’t have to build dashboards from scratch. The platform offers built-in reporting and time tracking that pulls straight from your project data.
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Limited design and visualization options: Google Sheets offers basic visuals, but if you want clean, professional dashboards with more than a bar chart or pie graph, you’ll hit a wall.
Teamwork.com gives you flexible, real-time dashboards with rich visuals, customizable widgets, and easy-to-read layouts.
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Harder to scale with your team: Google Sheets gets messy, fast, as more people join in. More tabs, more versions, more confusion. It becomes very difficult to manage when your team or workload grows.
Teamwork.com scales with you. Whether you’re managing 5 projects or 50, it keeps everything organized, accessible, and connected with reporting, time tracking, task management, and team collaboration all in one place.
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Outgrowing Google Sheets? Here’s how Teamwork.com takes you further
Google Sheets is great for getting started with quick and simple dashboards. But if you’re managing client work, juggling multiple projects, or leading a growing team, you’ll eventually hit a wall. That’s where Teamwork.com comes in.
Teamwork.com takes everything you wish Google Sheets could do, and builds it in by default. You get real-time dashboards, automated reporting, and accurate time tracking, all linked directly to your projects and tasks. No complex formulas, no manual updates, no hunting for the latest version.
You can easily track team performance, project health, billable hours, project budgets, and deadlines all from one place. And because everything lives inside the same platform, there’s no need to switch between tools or piece together scattered data.
Need to share updates with a client? Just send them a live dashboard link. Want to see how your team is tracking against deadlines? It’s already visualized for you. As your work grows, Teamwork.com grows with you, saving you time, reducing stress, and helping you deliver better results.
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