Keep useful context beside your Excel report.
Info Card gives dates, reminders, and short messages a clear place on your dashboard. Pair a descriptive label with a prominent value so readers can understand what matters before they review the rows.
Use it to show the time remaining before a deadline, identify a reporting period, or add a helpful note. Editable presets provide a starting point, while the card’s text and appearance can be adjusted to suit the report.
Answer the question behind the numbers
A dashboard can show accurate totals and still leave readers wondering what period they cover or which deadline comes next. An Info Card places a small piece of explanatory information beside the report, where it can be read without searching through the worksheet.
Choose one purpose for each card. A contract review report might need a countdown to the next review date. A recurring report might need a date label or a short message explaining its scope. Keep the content specific enough that someone opening the workbook for the first time understands what the card refers to.
Info Cards complement report metrics. If the question is how many records match a condition, use a Count Card. Use Info Card for the context that helps the reader interpret or act on the report.
Open the Info Card settings
- Open your OneXcel Dashboard Builder workbook and go to the report where the information belongs.
- Choose Add, then Info Card.
- Open the card’s settings button to display the Info Card editor.
- Locate Small Text and Big Text. These fields control the card’s label and main information.
Before entering content, decide what the card should communicate in one glance. For a deadline, write down the exact event and target date. This gives you a clear reference when checking the result later.
Make the label and main text work together
Use Small Text for the explanation, such as “Next contract review in.” Use Big Text for the prominent text or formula result. Together, these should read as one meaningful statement rather than two unrelated pieces of information.
A precise label matters. “Next review in” and “Contract expires in” describe different events, even when their countdowns happen to show the same number. Name the event your formula actually tracks. Changing a label does not change the date inside a formula, and changing the formula does not automatically correct an old label.
Keep the wording brief enough to scan comfortably. Use the card’s appearance controls to fit it into the report, then check that the label and value remain readable at the worksheet zoom your readers normally use.
Adapt the information to your own deadline
The Info Card editor includes Greetings, Closing Month, Business Day, Days Before, and Current Day presets. Choose the one that matches your purpose, then review the text or formula it supplies. A preset is a starting point that should be checked against your own report.
- For a deadline countdown, choose Days Before.
- Inspect the formula in Big Text and identify its target date.
- Change that date to the event you want to track. Check the year as well as the month and day, particularly for a deadline in the next calendar year.
- Update Small Text so the label names the same event.
- Choose Done and inspect the finished card beside the report.
Do not assume the card selects an expiry date from every contract row. Its result depends on the text or formula you configure. Also check whether the calculation uses calendar days or the business-day convention your task requires.
For reusable configurations, explore the Info Presets collection and the Info Presets import guide.
Keep the result accurate and useful
Verify the target date, the label, and the displayed value together. A useful check is to temporarily use a nearby date whose expected difference you can calculate easily, confirm the result, and then restore the real deadline.
If the formula uses today’s date, its result depends on Excel recalculation. When the displayed value appears stale, check the workbook’s calculation settings and recalculate before relying on it. For an overdue event, inspect how the formula handles a target date that has already passed; decide whether the card should show zero, a negative value, or a separate overdue message.
Finally, read the card in the context of the whole report. It should help the reader understand the worksheet without competing with its key metrics. A focused label and a checked result make a single Info Card more useful than several cards with overlapping or unclear purposes.