Here is an Xcelsius/Excel trick that allows you, the developer, to set a validity period on a dashboard. This is great for sharing demos or giving a potential client an evaluation period.
1. Setup your Excel file as follows
- Cell B1 enter your start date
- Cell B2 enter the Now() function to determine the current date
- Cell B3 use the Date() function to capture the year, month, and day. Then add the number of days that you want to make the dashboard viewable
- Cell B4 use an IF() statement to compare the expiration date to the current date
2. Here you can get creative, however for this example I am going to keep it simple. Add a background component to the canvas and make sure it takes up the entire workspace.
3. Set the dynamic visibility of the background component to cell B4 and set the key as “expired”. Be sure to check the “Block mouse movements” found on the “General” tab of background properties.
4. Top your dashboard off with a pop-up box or watermark displaying how many days remaining in the evaluation period by taking the difference of cells B3 and B1.
There you have it, a simple solution to implementing a validity period within your dashboards.
Please feel free to download the sample Excel file
