Pivot Tables - AirCooledNut · 30 Minutes Guide to Understand Pivot Tables By John Franco Excel-Spreadsheet-Authors.com 7 Timeless Principles to Gain this Excel Skill Right Now so

30 Minutes Guide

to Understand

Pivot Tables

By John Franco

Excel-Spreadsheet-Authors.com

7 Timeless Principles to Gain this Excel Skill

Right Now so you Skyrocket your

Data Exploration and Analysis Productivity

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http://www.excel-spreadsheet-authors.com/

The Pivot Table Principles Guide©

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TOC

TOC 3

INTRODUCTION 5

PRINCIPLE #1: MAKE A CLEAR DISTINCTION OF THE MASTER TABLE FIELDS 7

PRINCIPLE #2 MAKE A CLEAR DISTINCTION OF THE PIVOT TABLE REPORT

ELEMENTS 8

PRINCIPLE #3 DROP THE FIELDS TO THE CORRECT FIELD AREA 11

PRINCIPLE #4 THE ORDER OF THE FIELDS COUNTS 14

PRINCIPLE #5 YOU CAN SUMMARIZE THE NUMERIC FIELDS IN SEVERAL WAYS

16

PRINCIPLE #6 THERE ARE MAINLY 5 TYPE OF REPORTS 17

PRINCIPLE #7 YOU WILL ALWAYS ENCOUNTER SOME PROBLEMS 22

PIVOT TABLE RESOURCES 25

WHAT READERS SAY ABOUT EXCEL-SPREADSHEET-AUTHORS.COM… 26

EXCEL RESOURCES 28

ABOUT JOHN 29



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Disclosure

You have in your hands the same book as the paid version. The

unique exclusion I made was not offering the Excel example file that

allows you to practice. If you want to purchase the full version click

here

http://www.excel-spreadsheet-authors.com/30-minutes-pivot-table-guide.html





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Introduction

A Pivot Table allows you to quickly slice and dice information from

any large table you can imagine.

For example: you can crunch the master table shown below in several

ways…

Sales by Group Total sales for each product group

Product Sales Total sales for each product, organized by

group

Q1 & Q2 & Q3 & Q4 compares the sales between quarters



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Multiple Subtotals calculates additional summaries: the

average, largest, and smallest sales for each group

Average Sales provides the average sales amount for each

product

Top 3 Products Identifying the three best-selling products

within each group

All Quarters Sales for each product and group by quarter

And more ways…

It appears complex at first sight but don’t worry, if you can drag

the mouse, you can create a basic Pivot Table.

Put your hard hat and let’s grasp the 7 Timeless Principles of working

with Pivot Tables.

You will use PTs intuitively for the rest of your life…



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Principle #1: Make a Clear Distinction of the

Master Table Fields

Category field

In the above table, you have three ones: Group, Product and

Quarter. Imagine categories as the units of data you want

information about, for example: you can know the Sales sliced by any

of the categories: the Sales by Group, the Sales by Product and by

Quarter, etc.

A category field usually contains texts that are repeated across the

lines. For example, the Quarter field contains: Q 1, Q 2, Q 1, Q 1, Q

4, etc. See graphic above…

Numeric field

In the above table, you have one: Sales. Imagine a numeric field as

the source of information for categories, for example: you can know

the total, the average, the max Sales of any category: Group,

Product or Quarter.

There are other types of numeric fields like: Profit, Losses,

Salaries, etc. This type of field is necessarily a number. See graphic

above…



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Principle #2 Make a Clear Distinction of the

Pivot Table Report Elements

Use the sample file provided with this eBook for better understanding

(30-minutes-pivot-table-guide_example.xls).

First, launch the Pivot Table wizard, do it this way…

Excel 2007 users must do the following:

1. Place inside the table range and then

2. Go to Insert>Tables>Table>Ok or press CTRL + T. The table is

created

3. Go to Design>Tools>Summarize with Pivot Table

4. Choose the destination of your PT in the Create Pivot table

wizard: new or existing worksheet and

5. Press Ok

Excel 2003 users must do the following:

1. Place inside the table range and then

2. Go to Data>Pivot Table and PivotChart Report

3. Choose Next in the wizard step 1 of 3

4. Choose Next or change the range for the data source in the

wizard step 2 of 3

5. Choose the destination of your PT: new or existing worksheet

and

6. Press Finish in the wizard step 3 of 3

Once you have done the above steps, you will have two main

components:

The Drop Data panel

The Pivot Table Field List dialog



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The drop data panel

This is an area of the worksheet which is especially created by Excel

to receive the Fields from the Pivot Table Field List dialog. See

below…



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The Pivot Table Field List dialog…

This is a dialog which is usually docked to the right of your workbook

window. The fields of the master table are shown here. See below…

To create a Pivot Table report just drag and drop the fields

appropriately to the drop data area (see Principle #3).

It is important to note that the Excel area (as highlighted in graphic

above) is reflected from the master table. Those fields you see there

are the fields of the master table.

These fields can be dragged and dropped to the four main data

areas…

Row labels (row area for Excel 2003)

Column labels (column area for Excel 2003)

Values (data area for Excel 2003)

Report Filter (page area for Excel 2003)



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Principle #3 Drop the Fields to the Correct Field

Area

You already know the building-block concepts to build a Pivot Table

report: you have made the distinctions in the master table fields and

you are familiar with the elements of the Pivot Table command.

Now you will learn how to configure a PT report.

A Pivot Table report is built in front of you as you drop fields

to the data area APPROPRIATELY.

Drag the fields from the Pivot Table Field List dialog to the Drop Fields

area.

Excel 2007 users can drag and drop the fields to the “User area”

shown above.



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Excel 2003 users can add fields to the appropriate areas by using the

“Add to” button in the “User area” shown above.

Or you can drag and drop the fields from the Pivot Table Field List

dialog directly to the Drop Fields area. See below…

Now, each time you drop a field, you will have the report configuring

in front of you.

Finally you have it…

Drop the Numeric fields to the Data area only.



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Can you drop a Category field to the Data area?

The answer is YES. You can put a non-numeric field (category field)

on the Data area but you can only count texts, not average or sum

them.

You can try it…

A Sum will result in 0

A Max and Min will result in 0

An Average will result in #DIV/0!

The graphic below has the Field called “Group” on the Data area…



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Principle #4 The Order of the Fields Counts

Place the fields in the order that you need to be summarized in the

report. For example:

Product and Quarter (in the row area)

Quarter and Product (in the row area)



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Quarter and Group (in the column area)

Group and Quarter (in the column area)



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Principle #5 You can Summarize the Numeric

Fields in Several Ways

By default, Numeric Fields are summarized with SUM function.

But you can use various computations options…

SUM

COUNT

MAX, MIN

AVERAGED

And other numerical computation

Excel 2007 users, click on the field arrow in the Values Area and

choose Value Field settings, then set the parameters as you want or

right click over the cells that contain the data and choose Value Field

settings from the menu…

Excel 2003 users right click over the cells that contain the data and

choose Field settings from the menu…

You can also set the number format. See the image above



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Principle #6 There are Mainly 5 Type of Reports

Report #1 Single row



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Report #2 Multiple row



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Report #3 Columns



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Report #4 Page Filters



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Report #5 Combination of all the above types



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Principle #7 You will Always Encounter some

Problems

Don’t panic if you don’t find Fields

If you don't see the PivotTable Field List, make sure that you click the

PivotTable. If you still don't see the PivotTable Field List, do the

following:

Excel 2007 users: on the Options tab, in the Show/Hide group, click

Field List

Excel 2003 users: in the Pivot Table toolbar, choose Hide Field List.

If you don't see the fields in the Field List that you want to use,

refresh the PivotTable report to display any new fields, calculated

fields, measures, calculated measures, or dimensions that you have

added since the last operation.

Different Entries Result in a Different Category

If the Product name contains spaces, PT will show it as a different

item, for example: Boston Crab and Boston Crabs are different

entries, they will be summarized accordingly.

If you want Excel summarizes these entries as one, you must uniform

the data in the source table.



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Don’t frustrate too quickly when you cannot set the order of the fields

in the Drop Fields Area

Don’t lose sight of the four areas of the Drop Data panel. Be aware of

this when you have already dropped and dragged fields. See graphic

below…



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Too many columns to the right

If you drop a category field to the column drop area, you will have as

many columns as groups of data to the right.

For example: if you drop the Product field to the column area you

would have as many columns as Products. Unfortunately, you cannot

specify the set of Products you want to show in advance.

I recommend you to apply a filter to the desired field after dropping

it. Click the arrow that is shown for each field in the drop panel and

pick the items you want to show.

Well…

You are ready; this is all you need to know to get started strongly.

What next? Go and explore your chunk of data. You will fully

become a Pivot Table master when you make sense of your

own data.

DON’T BE AFRAID OF MAKING MISTAKES, if the produced report

is not the one you want, just drag and drop another field, move a

field from one data area to the other, change the order, etc.

Enjoy your data!

John Franco

Excel-Spreadsheet-Authors.com




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Pivot Table Resources

Excel 2007 Pivot Table video tutorial

Excel 2003 Pivot Table video tutorial

http://www.lacher.com/toc/tutpiv.htm

http://www.lacher.com/toc/tutpiv.htmhttp://www.lacher.com/t

oc/tutpiv.htm

http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/excel-pivot-tables.htm

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/ default.aspx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zHLnUCtfUk

http://www.datapigtechnologies.com/flashfiles/pivot1.html

http://www.lacher.com/toc/tutpiv.htm

http://www.lacher.com/toc/tutpiv.htmhttp:/www.lacher.com/toc/tutpiv.htm

http://www.lacher.com/toc/tutpiv.htmhttp:/www.lacher.com/toc/tutpiv.htm

http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/excel-pivot-tables.htm

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/default.aspx



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What Readers Say about Excel-Spreadsheet-

Authors.com…

July 15, 2009

"Hi John... you have very good content

here.

I am subscribing to your blog for my

daily reading list."

Chandoo, Pointy Haired Dilbert

Chandoo.org

See more testimonials

Posted on June 19, 2009 in the LinkedIn group

Microsoft Excel Users. For the article: SUMIF

Multiple - 7 Ways to Sum Values Based on Multiple

Criteria

"This is an excellent article. I have dealt with the exact issues mentioned here and had not

considered many of the options mentioned.

I am truly interested to discover what other

suggestions and ideas the author may be able to share."

Robert Parker

Project Manager at LeTourneau Technologies

Longview, Texas Area

http://www.chandoo.org/

http://www.excel-spreadsheet-authors.com/testimonials.html

http://www.excel-spreadsheet-authors.com/sumif-multiple-7-ways.html






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August 11, 2009

"Thanks - lots of useful articles on

Excel"

Danielle Stein Fairhurst

Financial Modeling in Excel Online Courses

http://www.plumsolutions.com.au/



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Excel Resources

Forums

http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/index.php

http://www.excelforum.com

http://www.eng-tips.com/

http://www.allexperts.com/el/Excel/

http://www.tek-tips.com/

Articles, Blogs, Tips and more

http://www.mrexcel.com/

http://www.chandoo.org/wp/

http://www.blog.contextures.com/

http://www.blogs.msdn.com/

www.cpearson.com/

www.contextures.com/

http://www.spreadsheetpage.com/

http://www.exceluser.com/

http://www.mvps.org/links.html#Excel

http://www.ozgrid.com/

http://www.exceltip.com/

http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/index.php

http://www.excelforum.com/

http://www.eng-tips.com/

http://www.allexperts.com/el/Excel/

http://www.tek-tips.com/

http://www.mrexcel.com/

http://www.chandoo.org/wp/

http://www.blog.contextures.com/

http://www.blogs.msdn.com/

http://www.cpearson.com/

http://www.contextures.com/

http://www.spreadsheetpage.com/

http://www.exceluser.com/

http://www.mvps.org/links.html#Excel

http://www.ozgrid.com/

http://www.exceltip.com/



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About John

John Franco is native of Ecuador, he is a Civil

Engineer and a bachelor in Applied Linguistics with

focus on creating systems for work, his long term objective in life is helping others to put their ideas into

the world.

His first entrepreneurial initiative is the web site http://www.excel-spreadsheet-authors.com/; which is dedicated to

mid/advanced Excel users so they can polish their skills to reach

higher productivity and clarity.

He quitted his job after having worked 7 years for Norberto

Odebrecht Construction Company (ranked among the World’s Top 50

Largest Construction Contracting Firms according to Engineering News

Record 2008).

Email him at: [email protected]


http://enr.construction.com/people/toplists/topGlobalcont/topglobalCont_1-50.asp

http://enr.construction.com/people/toplists/topGlobalcont/topglobalCont_1-50.asp

mailto:[email protected]



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Pivot Tables - AirCooledNut · 30 Minutes Guide to Understand Pivot Tables By John Franco Excel-Spreadsheet-Authors.com 7 Timeless Principles to Gain this Excel Skill Right Now so