Expert @ Excel

Pivot Tables
A Step By Step Guide To Learn And
Master Excel Pivot Tables To Get
Ahead @ Work, Business And
Personal Finances
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Table Of Contents

Chapter One: Overview of PivotTables

Introduction
The History of Pivot Tables
Mechanics of Pivot Tables
Implementation of Pivot Tables
The Pivot Table Layout Design
Report filter
Column labels
Row labels
Summation values
Four Main Areas of a Pivot Table
Values area
Row area
 Column area
Filter area
Chapter Exercise
Chapter Two: When to Use Pivot Tables
Chapter Exercise
Chapter Three: Working With Excel Pivot Tables
Fields and Areas of Pivot Table Layou t .
Discovering Data with the Pivot Table
Summary of Value
Keeping the Pivot Table Updated
Reports Generated by Pivot Table s .
How to Use the Pivot Table Function
Chapter Exercise
Chapter Four: Building Excel PivotTables
The First Step towards Creating a Pivot Table
Feeding Data into the Pivot Table
Techniques for Advanced Visualization
Settings for the Value Field
Chapter Exercise
Important Points to Note about Pivot Tables
Chapter Five: The Various Function You Can Undertake Using The Pivot
Tables
Use the Pivot Table to Create a Dynamic Range of Data
Counting Items Using the Pivot Table
How to Show Totals Regarding the Percentage
You can Use the Pivot Table to Create a List of Unique Values
Self-Contained Pivot Table
Grouping the Pivot Table Manually
Cloning the Pivot Tables just in Case you Need Another View
How do you Unclone a Pivot Table to Refresh Independently?
How to Do Away with the Unwanted Headings
Pivot Tables Allow you to Turn Off Auto Fit when Necessary
Chapter Exercise
Chapter Six: Benefits of Using Pivot Tables
Pivot Tables are Incredibly Fast
You Don’t Require Formulas in Pivot Tables
Elimination of Mistakes
Pivot Tables Make You Look Like an Expert
 Pivot Tables are Perfect Prototyping Tools
Pivot Tables can Examine Any Type of Data
Finally, You can Quickly Update Pivot Tables
Chapter Exercise
Chapter Seven: Types of PivotTables
Time Tracking Pivot Table
User Activity in a Web Portal Pivot Table
Class List Pivot Table
Instrument Measurement Pivot Table
Email Sign Ups Pivot Tables
Monthly Reports
Chapter Exercise
Chapter Eight: Advantages of Working with Pivot Tables
Chapter Exercise
Chapter Nine: Application Support of Pivot Table
Database Support for Pivot Tables
Conclusion
Chapter One: Overview of PivotTables

Introduction

A pivot table is an essential tool/program in data exploration and analysis

because it helps the user to manipulate the data efficiently to suit his/her needs. It
entails summarizing data to a new table from another table. The primary
operations that can be applied during this process include; data sorting,
averaging or summing data into the first table typically by grouping. It is
possible to explore, track and analyze thousands of data with the help of a small
flexible table that helps you analyze different perspectives of your data.
Main features of pivot tables include:

1. It is easier and straightforward to create pivot able hence save time

2. Allows you to create reports instantly
3. Enables the user to create interactive reports which can synchronize
with the audience
4. You can quickly mix the data by merely dragging fields, sorting and
performing different calculations on the data.
5. A pivot table allows you to have the best presentation of the data
6. You can create multiple reports from the same pivot table instantly.
As we move on, you will understand how this features in details and how they
function, with time, you will have a concrete knowledge concerning the pivot
tables .

The History of Pivot Tables

Bill Jelen and Mike Alexander refer to Pito Salas as the father of pivot tables in
their book "Pivot Table Data Crunching." Salas noted that spreadsheets have
data patterns while he was working on a new program that eventually became to
be known as Lotus Improve, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv . He
thought that a tool that could aid users to recognize the patterns mentioned above
would help in building more advanced data more quickly. By using the “Improv”
tool, users had an opportunity to define and store sets of data categories and the
change the view of the data simply by dragging the category name using the
mouse. This core function would end up providing the model that is now applied
in pivot tables. A few months after the release of Improve in 1991, "Brio
Technology" published Macintosh Implementation that was called DataPivot ,
but the technology was implemented in 1999.
In early 1914 Microsoft excel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Excel
came up with “PivotTable” and was introduced in the market. This tool was later
improved to the modern version of Excel. In 2000, excel introduced pivot charts,
a tool that can represent “pivot table” data graphically.

Mechanics of Pivot Tables

When you enter data in excel, it appears in flat tables; this means that they
consist of only of columns and rows, for example, the following portion of a
spreadsheet shows a sample data.

A table such as this one contains many data items and at times it can prove too
problematic when you want to summarize the data and generate reports. With the
help of a pivot table, you can quickly summarize this data to get the desired
information. There is no limitation on the usage of the pivot table; you can use it
in any situation as far as it deals with data.
Typically, a pivot table is composed of the row, column, and data field; the
column is the "ship" date, the row the "region" and the data is represented in
"units. These fields allow you to perform several kinds of operation such as sum,
average, count, and standard deviation among others.

Implementation of Pivot Tables

Different from other excel tools, pivot tables are not created automatically, in the
Microsoft, for instance, you must first select the entire data in the original table
and then insert tab to select the pivot table. You have the option to add the pivot
table into the already existing sheet, or you can create a new spreadsheet to co
contain the pivot table. The user is provided with the pivot table, which has the
column headers in the data. You will see more about the pivot tables as we
proceed on the “create” a pivot table part .

The Pivot Table Layout Design

The layout design for the pivot tables has got four options as shown below

Report filter

This option is used to apply a filter to the whole pivot table. For instance, if the
color of the item field is dragged and dropped in this area, the build table will
contain the filter above the table. The report filter comprises drop down options
such as as black, white, red among others. When you select an option from the
list of drop-down options, for instance, let's say green, then, the data that
displayed will be only the one from the rows that have color green.

Column labels

This feature is used to apply filters to the columns that have to be displayed on
the pivot table. For example, if the field containing the salesperson is dragged
and dropped into this area, then the pivot table created will include values from
the "salesperson" column. Besides, the total column will be added.
For instance, by using the table above, this action will generate five columns in
the pivot table. One column will be for each salesperson and the total column. A
filter will appear above the data and on the column labels from which the user
can now select the sales person to be presented in the pivot table. Note that the
pivot table created will have no numerical values because no data has been
inserted so far. However, when the data is selected, the values will automatically
update in the grand total column.

Row labels

Row labels are used to apply filters to the rows that will be displayed on the
pivot table. Let’s say for example that the salesperson field is dragged into this
area, the table that will be built after that will contain values from ‘salesperson'.
That is, the table will have the number of rows that equals the number of
"salesperson," the total row will also be added. Using the above sample table,
this command will automatically create five rows in the table. The rows will be
for each salesperson and the Grand Total.
Above the data, on Row Labels , a filter will appear from which the user can
choose one sales person to feature in the pivot table. Again, the table will have
no numerical data because it has not been selected. However, when the
numerical field is selected, the values will update automatically on the “Grand
Total” Row.

Summation values

Summation values usually take a field that contains numerical values that can be
used to carry out various calculations. However, using text values it doesn’t
mean that it is wrong, but instead of a sum, it will give a count. So in the sample
table provided above, if the "units sold' field is dragged and dropped in this area
together with the row label of the "salesperson," the instructions will lead to the
generation of a new column, sum units sold. This column will show values
against each salesperson

Four Main Areas of a Pivot Table

Values area

This area is large rectangle shaped that is below and to the right of row and
column headings. The values found in the value area are the calculations of the
data. Primarily, the data that you drag to the values area is the data that you are
interested in measuring, for example, revenue, count of units and the average
price.

Row area

The data placed in the row area field shows the display of unique values from
that row all the way down to the left side rows of the table. In most of the time,
the row area has one filed, but in some cases, there might be no fields at all.

Column area

This area is comprised of the headings that run down the pivot table. This area
gives you the column-oriented perspective. When you place data in one of the
column areas, the unique values from that column are displayed in a column-
oriented perspective. Besides, the column area is ideal for showing the trend
over time or creating a data matrix .

Filter area
This is an optional area that can be formed at the top of the pivot table. In the
case of the table presented above, the filter area is comprised of the region filed;
the pivot table is designed to show all parts. Besides, this area enables the user to
apply filters to the pivot table with much ease. Based on your selections, you can
efficiently use filters to the reports generated from pivot tables. However, the
type of data that is mainly included here is the one that you want to separate
from others so that you can give them specialized focus. For example, you can
use a line of business in a particular region and employees. Follow this link for
more details on the pivot table layout design.

Chapter Exercise

1. What do you understand by the term excel pivot table, what are some
of the essential points you have noted about excel?
2. Did you know about Excel pivot tables before this tutorial? I you did
what did you know about them?
3. If you add either new rows or new columns to the pivot table source
data, the pivot table is not updated even when you click on 'Refresh
Data.' Why and what is the solution?
4. By any means can you repeat 'row headings' in the Pivot Table?
5. Is it possible to show the text in the data area of the Pivot Table?
6. What are the features that make pivot tables an excellent tool to work
with on excel?
7. Can you briefly describe how the pivot tables function?
8. Give the layout design of excel tables and give an elaboration of each
area and why it’s important, what can happen if it’s omitted?
9. Describe the main areas of a pivot table and how any manipulation of
one area affects the others?
10. Do you need technical skills to work with Excel pivot tables?
Chapter Two: When to Use Pivot Tables
The pivot table presents the dimensions for a measure of columns and rows. It
allows you to analyze data through the use of different standard and sizes at the
same time. The dimensions determine how the data in the pivot table will be
grouped.
The pivot table is mainly useful when you want to include different measures
and dimensions on the same table. Besides, it is also useful when you want to
restructure them for various reasons.

1. When you want to summarize data like for example finding the
average sales for each region for each product from the product sales
data table
2. When you want to introduce a unique value in any of the columns in
the table
3. In case you want to make a dynamic pivot chart, pivot table will help
serve you a great deal.
4. In case you want to filter, sort and drill down data in the reports
without writing the formulae.
5. A pivot table is also useful in case you want to link data sources that
are outside excel and produce reports out of such data

Chapter Exercise

1. Apart from the uses mentioned above of pivot tables, can you think of
other applications?
2. How can you link data from sources outside the excel spreadsheet to
your pivot table?
3. When would be the appropriate time to use Excel pivot tables?
4. Why are pivot tables more preferred over the excel spreadsheets?
Chapter Three: Working With Excel Pivot Tables
You can create a pivot table from a range of data, or you can use the excel table.
You can also start with an empty table so that you can key in your data when you
are sure as to what you are looking for. If this does not sound like a good option
for you, you can still use the pivot tables recommended by excel. Excel
recommended pivot tables can give you a clue on the pivot table layout that is
the best for summarizing your data.
Excel offers you a more powerful approach of developing pivot tables from
multiple tables, unique data sources as well as external sources of data. The
power pivot works on its database referred to as the data model.
But before we move to the creation of the pivot tables, you need to have a deeper
insight into the usual pivot table before dealing with the complicated pivot table.

Fields and Areas of Pivot Table Layout .

The layout of the pivot table depends highly on the fields that you select for your
report and also how you arrange them in areas. The selection is just simple; you
can do it by dragging the fields until you realize the results that you desire.
During the dragging of the pivot table fields, the pivot table instantly adjusts
accordingly.

Discovering Data with the Pivot Table

The primary aim of using the pivot table is to explore data thoroughly to extract
significant information. You can achieve this action through the use of several
options that includes but not limed to, sorting, filtering, nesting, collapsing,
expanding among others .

Summary of Value

After collecting the data that you require through the use of a variety of
techniques, the next step to take is summarizing the data. Summarizing the data
is quite simple because Excel provides you with a variety of techniques that you
can apply to synthesize the data to suit your requirements. Besides, you can
switch across different types of calculations to test the results. This activity will
take just a few seconds of your time.

Keeping the Pivot Table Updated

After exploring and summarizing the data, you have to repeat the process in case
you have updated your data source. After you have done that, you can now
refresh the pivot table so that it can reflect the updated data.

Reports Generated by Pivot Tables .

You need to present your data as a report after summarizing it. The reports
generated through the pivot tables are collaborative in nature, in that, even a
person who is not familiar with excel basics can also use these reports. Due to its
dynamic nature, these reports enable the user to modify the reports quickly to
reflect the kind of details that you want to focus on that are of interest to your
audience. Besides, you can also structure the pivot table report to feature both
the standalone presentations and the needs of an integral report or any other case
that you might be looking to accomplish.

How to Use the Pivot Table Function

The pivot table function is the most widely used feature in Microsoft Excel.
Furthermore, this feature allows you to visualize data from different perspectives
to get a deeper insight. You are on the right platform if you have never built a
pivot table or you are seeking to sharpen your skills.
The above diagram shows a simple data set, but it is good enough to work with.
One thing to note is that all rows cannot fit in this column, what if there were
more columns? You can filter data in this table, but pivot table can make things
more efficient. Check the following process on how to construct a pivot table.

Chapter Exercise

1. What are the different options that you can use to create functional
excel pivot tables?
 2. After you have created the pivot table, what are the factors that
determine the layout of your pivot table?
3. What do you understand is the primary aim of using pivot tables
instead of just using the normal excels spreadsheets?
4. Describe the fundamental actions that help you to work with pivot
tables, especially modifying the data contained in pivot tables?
5. Describe you can update excel pivot table and how you can maintain
it updated?
6. Data summarizing is one of the factors that makes excel pivot tables
very popular, why can’t just use another tool to summarize your data?
7. What is the nature of the reports created by excel pivot table?

Chapter Four: Building Excel PivotTables

You can create a pivot table either from the excel table or from other data
sources; the key thing is that, whatever the source you use, the header for the
columns should be placed on the first row of the data. In case you are sure about
the fields that should be included in the pivot table, you can establish your data
from scratch. But if you are not sure about the best layout to use, use the
recommended pivot table by excel and choose the one that best suits your data
needs.

The First Step towards Creating a Pivot Table

The first thing you need to do is to ensure that there are no blank rows in your
source data. Having empty cells will cause you problems.
For instance, the blank row in the above spreadsheet would cause you problems
when you are creating the pivot table. You need to make sure that the
spreadsheet consists only of the adjusting data. To remove the blank row, you
need to go to home menu, click find, then special, blanks and finally delete rows.
After making sure that your data is uniform, click on any of the cells in the
spreadsheet containing your data, then click ‘insert’ tab. While still there, find
‘tables’ then click pivot table. Create a pivot table wizard will appear
automatically.
The pivot table pre-selects the data and will also display the range of the data at
the top place of the wizard. Nevertheless, you can adjust this setting if you don't
like it but the source data is in the adjacent range, there is no need to change
anything. And this is the advantage of making sure that there are no blank spaces
in the spreadsheet cell to make sure the source data display the way it is
supposed to be. Having accomplished the above process, leave the pivot table
placement option on the default ‘New Worksheet' then click OK.
Excel will automatically open a new worksheet and place the pivot table there,
below is a sample of what you should expect though they might not look quite
alike.
In this blank slate is where you will find the pivot table fields and the four areas
we mentioned previously where you could place them. If you do not see
something like the sleet below, click on the pivot table found on the left side of
the same worksheet.

If you still cannot locate the pivot table fields, check on the ‘show' group of the
analyze tab to select the ‘field list.' By clicking on the field list, the background
becomes dark grey .
Feeding Data into the Pivot Table

After you have successfully created the pivot table, you are now ready to go into
the real practice of working with the pivot tables. For example, drag the sales
person from the ‘field list’ and transfer it to the rows.
Automatically, rows form on the blank pivot table. Let's try to drag the sales
value to the value area.

.
Now you can see that it’s possible to view the sales totals by sales person very
quickly and without complications.

This is a great way to visualize the

data, but there are more possibilities. Let’s say you want to drag total sales by
this territory. We can do it by removing the sales person from the rows area and
drop territory there. The following visualizations will appear
Again, when you drop the salesperson under territory in the rows area, the
display you get becomes even more meaningful.
If you happen to click on the minus (-) sign, found on the left of the territory
labels, you can end up collapsing the list. You will still get the same visualization
that you had before varying the sales rep. Besides, you can also filter on a
specific row, for instance, you want to view something specific. You have to go
for the down arrow, row labels auto filter, uncheck all the boxes except the ones
you have created.

.
Techniques for Advanced Visualization

Let us now try and move the territory to the filters area and see what will
happen. In the values area, it will also alter the sales for the commission.

It is possible to select the commissions by the sales representative for any

territory. When you filter on the central, it allows you to sift through each set of
sales in each territory efficiently. You can also filter the rows with the help of the
row labels.

Settings for the Value Field

The most critical trick to use when working with pivot tables is the ability to
change the value field setting. It is straightforward to do the changes, you have
to click on the down arrow on the right side of the values area, and a value
setting box will appear automatically.
On this box, you can change how you want the summary of your values to
appear, then turn the setting to average and click okay.

Alternatively, you can still perform the same action by right-clicking on the
column in the pivot table, then go to summarize values by. Select count if you
want a quick tally on the number of sales per each sales representative.
There is also an essential feature, ‘show values as.' You can change the values
back to the sum of sales, but you need to make sure that the territory filter is set
to ‘all.' After verifying that, right click on any column in the pivot table and
choose ‘Show values as'
You should be following all the different options closely we are elaborating on
how you can apply the pivot table and deal with your data more efficiently. Let
us now choose a column total; you will be able to see all the sales by
representatives representing the percentage of the total sales.

The last stage, move to the column area. First of all, you need to move back to
the territory filed from the filters area to column. Automatically, we get a new
visualization of the data. All the options that we have mentioned including this
ones show just an example of the flexibility of the pivot tables to enable you to
summarize, format and display your data the way you want.
Now we have come to the end of how you can create pivot tables on the excel
spreadsheets and how they function. It is more efficient to analyze and generate
reports on pivot tables based on the nature of your data. Besides, you have seen
how simple it is to get started with pivot tables and how they help you to
visualize your data in different ways.to get more information on pivot tables
visit, https://excelwithbusiness.com/product/pivottable/

Chapter Exercise

1. What are the things you need to consider before embarking on the
construction of pivot tables?
2. What are the steps you need to follow to build a functional pivot
table?
3. What are some of the problems that you might encounter while
creating the pivot tables in case your source data contains blank
cells?
4. How do you remove the empty data cells in the source data for
your pivot table?
5. How do you change the values setting in the pivot table?
6. Upon refreshing a Pivot Table, it always loses the formatting like
the column width. How can this be corrected?
7. Is it possible to adjust the default summary function for data from
COUNT to SUM?
8. When linking to a pivot table cell, a GETPIVOTDATA formula is
created. How would you avoid this?
 9. How would you enable automatic refresh in Pivot Table upon
opening the workbook without using macros?
10. Can you hide the error values in the data field of Pivot Table? If
yes, how?

Important Points to Note about Pivot Tables

Experts in excel state that pivot table is the most excellent and perfect tool to
work with on excel if you want to get quality results from your data and save
time as well. Not any other tool in excel that can give you the flexibility and data
analytical power like the pivot table do. I don't object to this statement; I support
it 100%. Excel pivot tables are sturdy and fun to work with. The following are
some of the tips you should grasp about excel pivot tables;
It can only take less than a minute to create pivot points. There is a held notion
that building pivot tables are a complicated process and time-consuming, this is
not true. If you compare the time you will take to prepare reports, and by using
pivot tables, you would never think of going manual again, pivot tables are
incredibly fast.
Chapter Five: The Various Function You Can

Undertake Using The Pivot Tables

It is quite exciting and fun when you use the drag option to change fields on the
pivot table and sit back as you watch excel doing the magic and give different
representations of your data. However, you can find yourself falling into
problems very quickly if you are not keen on the action that you are carrying out.
You might command some options that will entirely alter your data and not be
able to turn back.
Before you start doing anything on the pivot table, make sure that you have a
solid plan to follow. Understand what you are trying to measure and sketch some
simple reports that will help you determine whether you are on the right track or
you have lost it all. Besides, the sketchy notes will guide you through the many
options that you might be considering executing. Keep it simple and focus on the
data you want to measure and the results you are aiming to achieve.

Use the Pivot Table to Create a Dynamic Range of

Data

When you use the excel spreadsheets for the source data you want to use in the
pivot table, you will get enormous benefits. Pivot table makes your data range
‘dynamic.' Dynamic range means that the scale of the table will expand and
shrink automatically when you remove or add data to the table. This means that
you don't have to worry that your table is missing some data, no; every detail of
your data will be displayed. Beside the pivot table is always in sync with your
data.
To use the pivot table;

1. Chose any cell in the data and use CtrL-T shortcut on the keyboard
and create a table
2. Click the option; summarize with pivot tables
3. Construct the pivot table normally
 4. The data you add on the table will appear automatically on the pivot
table

Counting Items Using the Pivot Table

The pivot table is designed to count any text field by default. This is an
advantageous and essential feature in business operations. For instance, let's say
you have some employees and you want to get a count per department. To get a
break down to every department, you can follow the following steps.

1. Create the pivot table the usual way by following the steps we
mentioned earlier
2. On the row label, add the department
3. On the value area, add the employee Name
4. The pivot table will automatically display the count of employees per
department
Check the spreadsheet below as a sample of what to expect
Breakdown of employees per departmen t

How to Show Totals Regarding the Percentage

When it comes to working with pivot tables, many people prefer displaying
results concerning percentages rather than count. For instance, let's say that you
want to show the breakdown of sales per product. Instead of showing the total
sales per product you want to display the percentage sale of the entire product
sales. Let's assume that in your pivot table you have created a field that you have
named sales in your data; you have to follow the following steps to show the
percentage of the total sales.

1. On the pivot table add the product as the Row Label

2. On the value area of the pivot table, add sales
3. Then you right click on the sale field and set show values as "to % of
the total"
See the illustration below on how you can show the percentage count of your
data
You can Use the Pivot Table to Create a List of Unique

Values
A pivot table is efficient in finding the exceptional value in the fields because
pivot table is designed to summarize the data. This is an excellent method that
allows you to see all the value in the field and will enable you to locate errors
and other variations in the data. Again, let’s assume that you have sales data and
you are interested in seeing the list of sold products. The following are the steps
that can help you create the product list.

1. Create the pivot table

2. On the row label, add the product
3. You can add any category you want in the value area, maybe category
or the customers.
4. After you have followed the above steps correctly, the pivot table will
display the list of all the products contained in the sales data.
Follow this link to view the video tutorial on how to create a unique list of
values https://exceljet.net/core-pivot

Self-Contained Pivot Table

After you create the pivot table from the data contained in the same excels
spreadsheet, it is possible to remove the data from the pivot table, and it will still
remain functional even without the data. The reason behind this abnormal
behavior is that the pivot table has a unique feature knows as "pivot cache" that
is responsible for maintaining the exact duplicate of the data created in the pivot
table.

1. You need first to refresh the pivot table to ensure that the cache is
updated
2. Delete the worksheet that contains the data
3. After that you use your pivot table normally
Check out how you can make a self-contained pivot table from this link
https://exceljet.net/tips/how-to-make-a-self-contained-pivot-tabl e

Grouping the Pivot Table Manually

Primarily a pivot table groups the data automatically in many ways; it's not a
must that the pivot tables have to group the information automatically. You can
also do it manually, into your customized groups. For instance, let’s assume that
you already have a pivot table that contains the breakdown of employees per
department. Let’s say that you want to go further and classify them in their
respective departments such as fulfillment, finance, marketing, IT into group one
and engineering and PR in group two. The two groups, 1& 2 does not appear in
your data, they are the custom groups that you have created. To group your data
in the pivot table into such grounds, follow these steps.

1. Click control and then select the items in the first group one by one
2. On one of the items, right click and from the menu that is displayed,
choose the group
3. Excel will create a new group and name it group one
4. On column b select sales and marketing and name it as you did above
5. Excel will form another group and call it group two
Check the example below
Cloning the Pivot Tables just in Case you need
Another View

When you have one set of the pivot table, you might not be satisfied because you
want to have a different view of the same data. Don't worry, with excel pivot
table, almost every activity you want to carry out in excel is possible. You can
adjust the existing pivot table to create the view you want. But if you are
generating a report than that you aim to be updating it on an ongoing basis, the
easiest way to go about it is clone the table. When you do the cloning, you get
the view of data from both sides.
There are two ways that you can clone the pivot table. Both methods are easy; it
depends on the one that interests you. The first method entails duplicating the
worksheets containing the pivot table. Right-click the worksheet tab and copy it
in the same workbook. The other method that you can employ is by copying the
pivot table and pastes it into another location. By using these two approaches,
you can create as many copies as you want.
The advantage of cloning the pivot table using the above two methods is that the
pivot tables that you copy share the same pivot cache. This implies that, when
you refresh one of the copy clone or the original pivot table, all the related tables
will be restored too.

How do you Unclone a Pivot Table to Refresh

Independently?

Situations might change and force you to want to unclone the pivot tables that
you had cloned before. This might occur in case you want to modify one of the
clones, but you don't want the change to affect the original pivot table. For
instance, let us say that you grouped a date field in one pivot table clone, after
refreshing, you discover that you had accidentally grouped the same date field in
another pivot table that you had no intentions of changing or whatsoever. What
you need to understand is that pivot tables share the same field groupings as well
as a cache when they are cloned .
To avoid frustrations and regrets, the following is a procedure on how you can
unclone the pivot table to institute changes to an individual clone. It means that
you have to unlink it from the pivot cache that it shares with other clones in the
same spreadsheet.

1. First, cut the pivot table to the clipboard

2. Then paste it into a new workbook
3. Refresh the pivot table
4. After you have done refreshing, paste it back to the original
workbook
 5. Do away with the temporary workbook
After following the above steps correctly, the new pivot table will have no links
to other pivots; you can then modify it the way you want.

How to Do Away with the Unwanted Headings

The default layout for new pivot tables is compact; it displays the row labels ,
column labels in the pivot table. These headings are not the most intuitive
especially to the people that do not make use of the pivot table when working
with excel. There is an easy way that you can do away with these headings if
you find them too odd, switch the pivot table layout to outline or tabular layout
from a compact design. This action will make the pivot table display the actual
field names the pivot table is supposed to have, the shading are much more
sensible. In case you want to get rid of all these labels at once, look for the field
headers button on the analyze tab found on the pivot table tools ribbon. Once
you click this button, all the headings will be disabled entirely.
Check the following illustration.
Pivot Tables Allow you to Turn Off Auto Fit when
Necessary

A pivot table is designed in such a way that when you refresh it, columns
containing data adjust automatically to fit the data. At times this is a good future,
but it can prove to be challenging especially if you have other things you are
working on in the same worksheet or you had adjusted the pivot table widths
manually, and you don't want them changed. However, it is easy to disable this
feature, right-click inside the pivot table and select, ‘pivot table options.' In the
box displayed, unmark the “auto-fit column widths on the update." Check the
example below
Chapter Exercise

1. Which 3 report formats for Pivot Tables are available in Excel 2007
or later?
2. How can you disable automating sorting in Pivot Tables?
3. How do you check whether a Pivot Table is modified?
4. Which option is used to add column(s) in Pivot Tables to compute the
values in run-time?
5. What is the difference between Pivot Charts Vs. Regular Charts?
6. What is a Pivot Cache?
7. Can you make a Pivot Table from multiple tables?
8. How can you show totals in terms of percentage on pivot table?
9. How do you create a list of unique values using the pivot table
10. What do you understand by the term “dynamic range of data”?
11. How can you remove data from the pivot table and still maintain it to
be functional?
12. What factor makes it possible to transfer data from the pivot table and
still remain functional?
13. What is a pivot table and the various methods you can use to clone the
pivot table?
14. Indicate the different roles that pivot tables help you to carry out?
15. What can you do to view the data displayed on the pivot table in
different dimensions?
Chapter Six: Benefits of Using Pivot Tables
This section is meant for those of you who don't get what it is all about with
pivot tables. Maybe you have ever tried the pivot tables once, and you did not
see the big deal with them because you did not know how to work with them and
you ended up a frustrated user. Don't worry sometimes they can be that way if
you don't have the knowledge required to use them.
If you use excel and you don't use the pivot tables for one or two reasons, or you
don't get as to why you should use them where's the excel spreadsheet can serve
you perfect alone. Below are the reasons why you should start working with
pivot tables.

Pivot Tables are incredibly fast

It is true that you can build the summary of the data you want manually if you
have the formula to do it and generate reports manually. However, despite how
smart and fast you think you are, it will cost you a lot of your time. For instance,
in his book, “Excel 2013 Pivot Table Data Crunching”. Mr., Excel Bill Jelen
using his expert skills in excel, he managed to create a manual summary of
products sales by region. He stated that it took him 77 keystrokes and if you can
pull this in ten minutes time, then you should consider yourself an excel guru.
He then contrasted the time he took to generate the report manually with pivot
table approach. With only a few clicks, the work that he spent a lot of time doing
was done. This proves that, no matter how fast you think you are in excel, the
pivot tables will always beat you to nil regarding speed and competence .

You Don’t Require Formulas in Pivot Tables

Yes, that is right; a pivot table does not need you to insert any equations so that it
can analyze your data. You can build a pivot table with only a click of the mouse
and drag option. To show how sturdy the pivot table is, this can be illustrated
below. Let's for instance group all order in the sales data to see the breakdown of
small sales and large orders
In the above worksheet, there is just too much data to work with; however, we
can request excel to group the order in the groups of $100. When you click okay,
a new layout will appear that does the grouping perfectly, check the table below

The summary that has been generated above shows that out of 3000 order, 2106
of the orders are less than $ 100 and the orders that have the value higher than
$1000 are only 12. Just imagine the kind of a formula that could have been
required to create this report manually. It cannot even be easy due to a lot of
calculations involved. You cannot understand it even if you succeeded to
generate the report manually. Pivot tables remain your perfect tool when you are
working with excel data.

Elimination of Mistakes

In most times, people are always worried that their worksheets could contain
errors. Or at one time you prepared the report manually, and the management
noticed some mistakes in the formula that you used, it's such a bad experience.
But you are not alone, these kinds of errors occur all the time even to the excel
gurus. However, you can eliminate those frustrations and lack of credibility by
merely using the pivot tables. There is no chance of messing up in pivot tables
because no formula that is required, your role is only to make sure that the
source data is correct. No matter the size of the data you are dealing with, excel
handles 100% of the calculations and formatting and your results will be perfect

Pivot Tables Make You Look Like an Expert

You must have noticed by now that formatting excel content is tricky and the
same time is very time-consuming. To make matters worse, if a client or the boss
wants the work to be configured differently, you need to go back to square one
and start afresh. You will never go wrong with pivot tables, all the formatting
applied is automatic and you have the chance of presenting professional work to
your boss. To emphasize on that point, have a look at the following report that
has been prepared by pivot table.
With only a few clicks the entire table is transformed into a pro level report,
check below.
Pivot Tables are Perfect Prototyping Tools

At times you might get confused about what to do with the data that you have
been presented with, you might get confused on how to organize it in the excel
worksheet for better analysis. By using the pivot table, you will have a chance to
test the data and see the results. If you are not satisfied with the results, then you
can adjust accordingly, but if the results are perfect, you can proceed.
Experiment with different layouts until you find the one that best suits you. For
instance, let's say that you need to tell the IT the kind of a report that the
management needs to analyze sales for a given year, the IT team need to code
that report in the web app that they manage. By the use of pivot table, you can
start off by adding the products and sales to the pivot table.

Then you need to key in details such as the date.

Okay, this report is not, but it’s too broad, let’s try and see how quarters would
work in rows
Now this works, you have something that you can call a report that you can now
send to the IT team. This report will enable them to have the exact idea of what
you want to be created.
You have now witnessed how pivot table an excellent prototyping tool. Besides
they play a more significant role in helping you understand the kind of data you
need to collect, how you can analyze it and send it to the relevant parties without
delays.

Pivot Tables can Examine Any Type of Data

Most of the examples of pivot tables offered on the web concentrate on the sales
data. Someone might think that the pivot table is only used in sales data, but
that's not the case. A pivot table can be used to analyze any data that you want.
For instance, let's assume that you have the employee list and you are required to
create a simple breakdown per each department. Let’s check the following data.
By looking at this set of data, you can push it to the pivot table to generate a
report, and within a minute, this is what you will get:

Now you can follow the pattern and see how easy it is; you have to start with the
raw data that you have collected. Then you need to push this data to the pivot
table within a fraction of a minute; you will have your report.

Finally, You can Quickly Update Pivot Tables

In this dynamic world, data is always changing and the experience that you had
yesterday might not be the same with what you will encounter tomorrow. Pivot
tables are different from the other tools found in excel; they don't update
automatically. The beginners always get confused because they change the
source data expecting that even the pivot table will adjust accordingly but that
does not happen.
To update the pivot table, you need first to refresh the source data. Once you get
started with pivot tables, you must have realized by now that data refreshing is
the best feature of pivot tables because this is the moment when Excel does the
rest of work for you automatically. To update your report, the first step you need
to carry is paste over the data you had collected previously. Because the
information is contained in the excel table, the table will range automatically and
adjust to include even the data that you have to add.

Chapter Exercise

1. Apart from the above-listed benefits, what other benefits do you think
the pivot table offers especially in business?
2. How is a pivot table able to work correctly without the use of
formulas?
3. How does a pivot table assist you to eliminate errors on the on your
reports?
4. How do you refresh the source data on excel spreadsheets?
5. Upon updating a Pivot Table, it always loses the formatting like the
column width. How can this be corrected?
Chapter Seven: Types of PivotTables
If you have been keenly following the pivot tables in different websites, you
might realize by now that majority of those websites use sales data as their
examples. It doesn't mean that pivot tables cannot be created for other data; they
can be. The reason why sales data is widely used as examples is that sale deals
with money, and it is quite easy to use sales because all companies at least have
sales data at any given point. If this got you confused, you should know that
pivot tables could be used to handle any data. Any time you want to work with
data, pivot tables should always be in your mind.
To explain how essential and powerful pivot tables are, below are five exciting
examples of pivot tables that you might not have seen before. Each type will be
followed by a detailed elaboration so that you can understand what each type
entails and how you can use it.

Time Tracking Pivot Table

Strategic planning is everything for the business. If you need to log in different
times for different clients or projects, this task will not be as stressful. Pivot table
summarizes all the data that you push to it to feature your desired format. Let’s
say that you want to see the information on a weekly basis; excel provides a
function known as WEEKNUM function. You also have the chance to see the
layout of the traditional timetable.
Imagine being in a situation whereby you are dealing with different clients; you
need different time to log into each one of them to report the progress of your
projects. You need reporting time for different clients. Of course, there are a lot
of applications dedicated to time tracking, but the pivot table is the best of all.
All that you need to record is the date, time spent in doing that particular project,
the name of the client and finally the project. After you have keyed in all the
relevant details consistently, you should end up having something like this:
You must have noticed that there are no blank spaces between the data cells; you
need to enhance consistency when you are entering the data to avoid the
problems that might arise when pushing the data to the pivot table. You might
want to view your time by weeks or days. Your pivot table will appear as
follows:
A critical point to note is that, once you filter a different week number, the pivot
table develops a new sheet that shows the days of the week.
It is also important to note that, when you add a name column to the data, you
have the chance to track and report time for multiple clients. Besides, you could
also include a rate column to the same data the use of the pivot table to create a
summary of the billing rate of the time logged.

User Activity in a Web Portal Pivot Table

Imagine of a situation whereby, you are presented with data dump from a
company’s website, the website provides product information to various
partners. The partners of this website login consistently throughout the year. You
decide to open up the data to take a look, and you find that there are over 30000
registered users; the data might appear as follows;

This table shows just a sample of the data that you may find when you log in.
Let 's say that the boss wants to get some necessary information from you like
the number of users that are active currently, the number of users joining every
month or what partner has the highest number of user accounts among others. So
is it possible to deliver this kind of information within one hours' time?
Before panicking and decide whether you will delegate the work or do it
confidently, you should know that that this kind of data can be analyzed entirely
in pivot tables, it will only take a short while, and you will have sufficient time
to do some other things. This is what pivot tables will have for you:

It's impressive to note that there are even a section of suspended members
though you did not ask for that. Who knew there could be suspended users? It’s
only the pivot tables. Then go for the top ten partners by the number of users that
are currently active. The high ten-value filter quickly does it; this is what you
should expect:

Class List Pivot Table

Let us look for an example whereby you want to coordinate sign-ups for a class
offered on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Every day when there are sign-
ups, you expect to have something that looks like this:

Your primary responsibility here is to send a report to the instructor at the

begging of each day to sow the number of current registrations. The data is quite
small in this case, if you have to generate the report manually, you need to
employ some filtering and sorting techniques, and the devastating thing is that
you will need to repeat this process daily, however, it is automatic when you are
using the pivot tables. It’s quite simple when you employ the pivot tables, create
a simple pivot table that summarizes the class day, you should have something
similar to this

When you add the name, you can come up with a full class list that looks
something like this:
Instrument Measurement Pivot Table

Let’s assume that you have measurement data from instruments that records,
relative humidity, temperature, rainfall, dew point. You might have a data that
looks something like this.
You need to quick breakdown to show the average reading of these instruments
per hour. You can do this activity manually by constructing your formulas, but
there is no need as you are going to waste a lot of your precious time. By
pushing this data into the pivot table, you can efficiently add each of the above
measurements as a value, and then you have to change the display from the sum
to average. The result of this process will be a tidy summary which will display
the average reading of each measurement per hour; check the example below.
The average reading per hour will look like this in less than five minutes
Email Sign Ups Pivot Tables

Email sign-ups are one of the underutilized options of pivot table thought it is
imperative and exciting because of how you could easily solve problems. In case
you are seeking to analyze the email sign-ups by dates to identify the days of the
week that could be more successful, then the pivot table is your tool. The only
thing that matters the most is having the data that you can add to the pivot table
then excel will automatically do the rest of the work for you. If you want to
narrow your data to feature special categories, pivot table allows you to do
precisely that, besides you can have the chance to color-code your email signups.
In this case, let’s assume that you are working with a client that is tracking the
traffic of email sign-ups on their websites. The client is planning on embarking
on, and a new promotion campaign and he wants you to investigate the best day
for sign-ups in a week, by the data that they have collected. It can be somehow
trick to include the day of the week because it is not found in the data. However,
you can still add it by the use of weekday function. Your data looks something
similar to this:
Then an initial summary will look like this:

By looking at the data, you realize that it is essential to display the total sign-ups
in terms of percentages instead of using the number counts. When you set the
email count to display the row percentage, the pivot table will automatically
show a breakdown by the weekdays, besides you can add conditional formatting
features to make the lower and the higher percentage distinctive. For instance, in
this case, the green color depicts the higher percentages while the blue color
represents, the lower percentage.

For more details, follow this link https://exceljet.net/blog/5-pivot-tables-you-

probably-havent-seen-before

Monthly Reports

By using excel provided ‘Group" feature, you can quickly summarize days,
weeks, moths information into weekly, monthly or annual reports. However, you
can even group information by month only to see the trend of sales over the past
few months, or you can as well group them by month and year, hence have an
opportunity to see the performance of each month. Using the pivot table can help
you summarize a significant amount of data into a simple single spreadsheet.

Chapter Exercise

1. Identify various pivot tables that you can use and how you can work
on each of them to achieve your goals.
2. Because you have already gone through the various types of pivot
tables that you can create, can you recall how you can use a pivot
table to remember how you can track your time to ensure you serve
all your clients satisfactory?
 3. Identify one or several areas that you think that they are slow in
operation, but the same process undertaken can be done correctly by
pivot table to enhance efficiency.
4. Can you illustrate how pivot tables can apply to small and medium
businesses?

Chapter Eight: Advantages of Working with Pivot

Tables
The main advantage of working with pivot tables is that they allow you to see
how the data work behaves when you introduce some changes. A pivot table is
one of the available excel tool so far that enable the users to have total insight
into data analytics. Besides users can generate multiple reports from this tool
from the same data within a single file within seconds
Pivot tables can work correctly with SQL exports. SQL is an abbreviation for the
structured query language . Its primary role is to request information from the
database. Over the decades, SQL has been the leading query language for
database management system running on PCs and mainframes. If the pivot table
tool is used on the Microsoft Excel, then the tool integrates well with SQL
export.
Besides, the data held in the pivot tables are easier to segment. By using the
pivot tables, users can segment the analytics gathered into the database.
Pivot table enables you to create instant data whether you directly program
equations to the pivot table or whether you rely on the excel formula. It doesn't
take you a lot of time to add all the data together to create a report. Besides
generating a report manually has a couple of disadvantages because there might
be an error in the formula, it consumes a lot of time. In case you need a different
version of the report you have to go to the starting point again. However, the
pivot table eliminates all these drawbacks because it is efficient, super-fast and
reliable.

Chapter Exercise
 1. Identify other advantages that one can get from using the pivot tables?
2. What are some of the problems you are likely to encounter while creating
pivot tables if you didn't follow the steps precisely ?

Chapter Nine: Application Support of Pivot Table

The functionality of a pivot table is a result of several basic spreadsheet
applications and database software; it is also found in some other data
visualization tools and business packages.
Initially, Google documents had allowed for the creation of the pivot table
gadget that was referred to as panorama analytics. However, by the year 2011,
this device proved to be problematic because limited functionality and slow
processing speed in case of large data set.

Database Support for Pivot Tables

The SQL, an object that relates to the database management system, allows the
pivot tables to be created using the tablefunc module. Also, the SQL fork enables
pivot tables that use CONNECT storage engine to be functional.
Some of the popular databases that do not support pivot functionality directly,
such as the Microsoft SQL server as well as SQLite can derail the functionality
of the pivot table by using some embedded functions such as the dynamic SQL
and subqueries. The challenge that faces pivoting in these kinds of scenarios are
that the number of the output column must be well known at the time by which
the query begins to execute. Pivoting, in this case, will not be possible because
the number of columns relies on the data itself. This means that, for pivoting to
work, the names must be coded hard or the query must have been created
dynamically for it to execute by the data.
When it comes to online analytical processing, excel pivot tables contains a
feature that directly queries an OLAP server for data retrieval instead of relying
on the excel spreadsheet to obtain the data. In this setup, the pivot table acts as a
simple client of an OLAP server. The pivot table not only allows the connection
to Microsoft analysis service.
Conclusion
We hope that this tutorial will serve you a great deal in handling your data more
efficiently. Again, if you didn’t know why you would require the input of a pivot
table, now you know how much it can save your time and also help you produce
quality reports. However, a crucial point to note is that you should follow the
steps of building the pivot table very carefully to avoid the error notifications.
We also hope that the skills you have learned in this tutorial will help you to plan
on how to deal with different dynamics of your data for decision-making. This is
a powerful tool that can help your business or project to have a competitive edge
in the market by enhancing quality and efficiency. We are optimistic that we
have been able to address all your questions regarding the pivot tables .

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