Hi,

When i was doing research on Excel I found this blog 'BEyond' where the author clearly explains the power of excel for creating dashboards, and explains how and when to use the following formulas: SUMIF, VLOOKUP, INDEX+MATCH, NESTED IF.It would be really a great help to you. If you want to learn more about Excel i feel the link which i mentioned below helps you a lot.
http://beyond.insofe.edu.in/basic-excel-for-analysts-part-1-sumif-vlooku...

Good Luck :)