So, in this series of articles I’m going to share with you some Top features in Pivot Table you gotta know! Same as everybody else out there, I’m a self-taught Excel user. When I started my first job, I was being requested to use Excel to sort out some report. That’s my first encounter with Excel. Never in my life I have actually being properly taught how to execute tasks in Excel, mostly are trial and error.
Still, I have not come across Pivot Table this tool until much much much later, when I started my career as an Excel instructor. I kid you not, the tasks that I carried out in my earlier of my career life with Excel are nothing much, besides involving insane amount of manual cross check data, sorting, cutting and pasting information. Those tasks pretty much have becoming like a routine for me, almost every day I will be doing the same thing over and over and over again. Sometimes I get curious about some of the other tools in Excel, but I rarely have time explore those tools. You will hear some people say Excel is a very powerful tool, but for me, I didn’t think it was. Simply because of what I have been doing is not other than Ctrl + C Ctrl + V. That was what Excel meant to me.
When I became an Instructor myself, I started to have more time to explore the other tools in Excel. Well, I would say, I’m obligate to. I started to learn and explore, then I met Pivot Table. The more I explore, I felt the connection between me and Pivot Table. For me, I would say Pivot Table is one of the main organs of Excel, Excel wouldn’t survive without it. And when I would talk about Pivot Table during my class, I would describe Pivot Table is one of the sexiest tools in Excel. It is beyond Powerful, way beyond…..
Now, you might get curious why I would called it sexy? You know when people say, an intelligent woman is sexy, that how I see Pivot Table. It is smart, powerful, robust and dynamic. All those years and time that I have spent on Ctrl + C Ctrl + V, the same result carried out by using Pivot Table, you can achieve it within seconds. Like what?????? Oh yea, seconds
So, this is what I usually showcase in my Excel class. I will share the kind of pain that I’ve went through to achieve a certain type of report, to relate to everyone of my students or you out there. The sample is as attached in the GIF below.
So, did you see how the report looks like? That, I would call it a static report.
Definition of Static:
Lacking in movement, action, or change, especially in an undesirable or uninteresting way.
URL: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/static
Now, do you know how did I manage to create such report? The one as shown in the GIF as above? Hah! I cut and paste data that I pulled from the system each month (could be each week, if required), carefully manually paste it at the adjacent column from the last period. I bet some of you out there would be secretly nodding, “yea, I did the same thing too”. Ohh well, do you see what’s wrong right here? Busy doing our thang, but all these whiles, we’re been wasting so much time doing what we’re not supposed to. Indeed yes, you get your result, but all those times that we’ve been wasted, I would say “unproductive”.
In fact, the report can be easily built using Pivot Table within seconds. Given that you have already know what to do in with Pivot Table. Besides, you must get all your data being arranged in a proper format before connecting it to the Pivot Table, or else, you will not be getting your desire result as well. In my next article, I’m going to talk about all the important features in Pivot Table and what you can do with it while creating reports. Plus, I will also talk about the do’s and don’ts.
