Pivot Tables

T.C.

Can someone please explain a common use of pivot tables. I use excel spreadsheets with the usual functions, sort and filters etc, but don't really know when to use these. I have tried them, but can't find a "need" for them. Opinions appreciated.

Newbie

I know how to do pivot tables but in practice I have never found a need for them in my experience

PGM

I hardly ever use them, I don't know why, think I prefer solving problems with my own formulas.

An example where they come in handy; say you have 10 staff working on a few projects. And you've exported the info from your project accounting software, you could use a pivot table to display how many hours each staff member has worked on each project, nothing special but its displayed in table format so easy to compare etc etc..

mrb82

I use them to produce an aged analysis of my debtors. Very useful as the column headers is the dating range and the row headers are comments I use to categorise the debt.

Alternatively, I use them to make sure my figures are correct when I do my reconciliation. It takes out duplicate reference numbers and gives me the correct total for each ref, so for example, in a long list of references and cash values, there could be the same reference in there a couple of times with different values, so £100, £50 and another £50. When I do a vlookup to pull the data to my workings page, it would just pull one the first value it comes to for that ref, so £100. Using a pivot, it brings the sum of values for that ref, so £200. It can also be used to show how many occurances of that ref there are using a count function, this way you can quickly check for duplicates.

I love pivots.

T.C.

Thanks everyone. Now I can practice with them!

Louise89

They are a good report tool if you want to create sales leads from your sales ledger or sales spreadsheets... etc

T.C.

Can anyone recommend an online tutor for pivot tables?

PGM

T.C. wrote: »

Can anyone recommend an online tutor for pivot tables?

google.com

Jo Clark

T.C. wrote: »

Can anyone recommend an online tutor for pivot tables?

This is for Excel 2007

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/CR010047968.aspx

or direct to pivot tables -

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/pivot-table-assistant-EM010278224.aspx?CTT=1

or as PGM said, google.com and see what you can find...


Good luck.

JC

T.C.

Thank you!

deanshepherd

A chance to use my favourite toy..!

http://bit.ly/v7lFMS

SandyHood

Another is on You Tube
As some of the spreadsheet students missed classes last Jan/Feb, they used the YouTube films to see how to complete them.
I've seen pivot tables tested on the on-line exams.

Jo Clark

SandyHood wrote: »

I've seen pivot tables tested on the on-line exams.

I had to prepare a pivot table from data provided in the spreadsheets (SPSW) module at level 3.