Creating your first Pivot Table

Using Excel 2010

An extract from a comprehensive and indepth tutorial from ICS Training Go to http://www.ics-training.co.uk/Free_Pivot_Table_introduction.html to download the accompanying excel file that accompanies this tutorial.

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Creating a pivot table Lets create our first pivot table.

Open the file Pivot Bank Accounts.

This is the same data as we saw in our file, First Example, but the data has not been converted to a table and the pivot tables have not yet been created. Convert the data to a table: you do not need to select the data, but the cell pointer must reside within the data. Select the Insert tab in the Tables group, click Table. Excel will select the data; if the data is laid out correctly you will not need to adjust the selection. If necessary, check My table has headers Click OK. Having converted the data to a table, any new data added is automatically included in the table range. Look at the name box and observe the data is named Table1.

Insert a Pivot table: Ensure that the active cell resides within the data select the Insert tab Tables group PivotTable. Excel will pick up the named table range. The default location will be New Worksheet dropping into a new worksheet will prevent the pivot table obliterating your data, stick with this for now, but at times you may want to choose Existing Worksheet Click OK.

Excel creates an empty pivot table. Two new contextual tabs appear above the ribbon and the PivotTable Field List task pane is displayed on the right of the window. This task pane is re-sizeable and may be dragged away from its docked state by clicking and dragging on its title bar. Note that if you click a cell outside the pivot table, the contextual tabs disappear and the Field List becomes hidden click inside the pivot table to re-display. (If, having done this, the pivot task pane is still not displayed, on the PivotTable Tools Options tab click Field List on the right-hand side of the ribbon). Examine this task pane. The top section contains the fields, or column headings, in our data. The bottom section contains four areas for assigning the fields. Now think how you want the pivot table to display your data: which fields you want displayed in columns and which you want displayed in rows. For our first example, we will summarise the amounts deposited with the branch names as column headers and the account types as row labels. In the task pane, from the Choose fields to add to report area, drag Branch into the Column Labels area; drag Acct Type into the Row Labels area; drag Amount into the Values area. Alternatively, you can

Right click the field names in the Choose fields to add to report area and choose the required location from the shortcut menu.

348 records of data are summarised and reduced to just 9 rows. You do not need to drop all fields into the pivot table any not chosen simply do not appear in the pivot table. Make a note of the grand total. Add a new record at the end of the data on the September sheet. If you converted your data to a table, the new record will be included in the table range (select Table1 from the Name Box). Come back to the pivot table. Note the total is NOT updated automatically. You must refresh each time you make a change to the table. On the PivotTable Tools Options tab Data group Refresh (about centre of ribbon). ! If the PivotTable Tools Options tab is not displayed, click into the pivot table. OR With the mouse pointer within the pivot table, right click Refresh