Learn how to make a quick network visualization in Excel with GIGRAPH

5 min readSep 22, 2023

By Dr. Verónica Espinoza, 2023

◾Twitter (X) @Verukita1 ◾LinkedIn: Dra. Verónica Espinoza ◾website: www.nethabitus.org

What can I do with GIGRAPH?

Working with Excel spreadsheets and analyzing data as well as catching trends can be tedious and time-consuming. However, it must be done. Analyzing data is important, especially at this time when we deal with large amounts of information on a daily basis. To help you make better sense out of your data, you can use Gigraph, a great Excel add-in to help you visualize and explore information [1].

With GIGRAPH you can create Instant Visualization for Excel. All this visualization Gigraph does just happens within just a few seconds, and you already have the information you need–or think you don’t see–instantly [2].

Who is the Developer of this plugin?

If your data describes directed relationships between multiple parties, for example payments or dependencies, this visualization is a perfect fit. Try the included sample data, and learn what Gigraph can do for you within seconds [1].

Learn more about this plugin here

How does it work?

All you need to do is to highlight the data table that you need, and Gigraph will do the rest. Gigraph will do data aggregation, fill out missing values, and take care of the varying value formats. The layout is also populated by Gigraph, so you don’t need to do the layout or anything at all [1].

To have it installed, all you need to do is to download the add-in from the Microsoft AppSource portal. You can look for Excel add-ins or search for Gigraph based on categories. You can also type the name of the add-in inside the Search box. Another way of getting the add-in is through Excel. Just go to the Insert tab -> Add-ins -> Store. You can also search for it through the search box, click on the “Add” button and then finish installing in Excel [1,2].

An overview of the plugin:

In this tutorial we will review how to prepare data and make quick network visualizations in Excel with GIGRAPH.

🏁Let´s start!

STEP 1. Open your desktop Excel workbook (also works with the online version of Excel).

Name 3 columns with the headings “From”, “To” and “Value”, respectively. Then, paste or write the corresponding data for each column. Now, generate a table with this data, as shown in the example.

**Figure 2.**-Data preparation. (by the author)

STEP 2. Go to Home > plugins (1) > See all (2) > GIGRAPH (3),
as shown.

**Figure 3.**-Steps to open the plugin. (by the author)

STEP 3. Once you have opened the plugin, select the table, then click “Start” > “Continue” (twice) > “Finish”, as shown in the gif and that is all!, you will see the generated network.

**Figure 4.-**Network generation from the prepared data. (by the author)

Note: You can also generate the network from data you already have. Just open the Excel with your data, select your table, then activate the plugin and all the headers of your table will be identified, finally you can select the columns that will correspond to the egdes and the values to generate your network.

For example, in the following exercise, I opened my Excel workbook with data and when I activated the plugin it identified the headers of my table, so I could select which of my columns would correspond to the edges and values of my network.

**Figure 4.-** Generation of the network from a file that already had data previously. (by the author)

STEP 4. Now, you can adjust the different parameters that you want and apply the zoom controls to interact with your network, as shown.

**Figure 5.**-Parameter adjustment and network exploration. (by the author)

Conclusion

Gigraph is a network visualization tool that extends the functionality of Excel by allowing you to explore data and generate instant network visualizations.

I consider Gigraph to be an ideal tool if you want to make instant visualizations and quickly explore your network, but if you want to do deeper network analysis then you could use other tools such as Gephi, NodeXL, Graphext, Cytoscape, Tulip, among others.

😉Thanks to the developer Patrick Bürgin for this useful plugin and for this great contribution to the community!