A lot of Excel users have heard of PivotTables and have probably even created one. But, at the same time, many have fumbled through the process. In this lesson, we're going to start at the beginning and explain the data we are going to "Pivot" in detail. From here, we'll setup the PivotTable right next to the data we are "Pivoting / Summarizing," so we can easily see how Excel is working with the data. Just remember a PivotTable is a SUMMARY, and there are NO formulas - just drag... and drop.
Text01:48 Congrats on learning PivotTables! They are awesome, relatively simple to set up, and very powerful. Just select the Excel Table, and click PivotTable within the Insert Tab of the ribbon. Excel will pop up a dialog window in which you have data you want to analyze. Excel should pick up the "block" of data where you are selected. If not, go ahead and select a data range (headers + data... NO TITLES OR TOTAL ROWS). Then tell Excel where you want your PivotTable to be located, such as on a new worksheet OR at an existing location. In this example, we specify an existing location - right next to the data table. - and click Okay. Excel will then display a "Box" PivotTable outline, a PivotTable Field list and quadrants. Drag and drop fields into one of the four quadrants to start analyzing.
03:33 Once you've created a PivotTable, now it's time to analyze your data. To do this, you need to first understand how Excel will interpret your data when you "Drag & Drop" a field into one of your four quadrants. Watch how Excel performs this task in this video segment.
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Pivots-Outlines-1.xlsx