Using a lot of conditional formatting to highlight outliers, errors, data points. Occasionally I'm using a help column with many IF tests to set the stage. Anyway Conditional Formatting, is the next best thing to make the items of interest stand out [Background, Borders, Number formats, Font/formats]. Here's one introduction: http://www.excel-easy.com/data-analy...ormatting.html
The best bits are, you can reuse them CFs in non-adjacent cells and ranges, such definitions possible as "If Cell Value meets conditions, then Format so", to include show colored markers, arrows, flags, you name it. Trends indicators [5 maximum], progress bars are also in the feature.
Even in instances use VBA to populate dynamic ranges, sky near limitless