In microsoft excel what is a pivot table

If you are reading this tutorial, there is a big chance you have heard of (or even used) the Excel Pivot Table. It’s one of the most powerful features in Excel (no kidding).

The best part about using a Pivot Table is that even if you don’t know anything in  Excel, you can still do pretty awesome things with it with a very basic understanding of it.

Let’s get started.

Click here to download the sample data and follow along.

What is a Pivot Table and Why Should You Care?

A Pivot Table is a tool in Microsoft Excel that allows you to quickly summarize huge datasets (with a few clicks).

Even if you’re absolutely new to the world of Excel, you can easily use a Pivot Table. It’s as easy as dragging and dropping rows/columns headers to create reports.

Suppose you have a dataset as shown below:

This is sales data that consists of ~1000 rows.

It has the sales data by region, retailer type, and customer.

Now your boss may want to know a few things from this data:

• What were the total sales in the South region in 2016?
• What are the top five retailers by sales?
• How did The Home Depot’s performance compare against other retailers in the South?

You can go ahead and use Excel functions to give you the answers to these questions, but what if suddenly your boss comes up with a list of five more questions.

You’ll have to go back to the data and create new formulas every time there is a change.

This is where Excel Pivot Tables comes in really handy.

Within seconds, a Pivot Table will answer all these questions (as you’ll learn below).

But the real benefit is that it can accommodate your finicky data-driven boss by answering his questions immediately.

It’s so simple, you may as well take a few minutes and show your boss how to do it himself.

Hopefully, now you have an idea of why Pivot Tables are so awesome. Let’s go ahead and create a Pivot Table using the data set (shown above).

Inserting a Pivot Table in Excel

Here are the steps to create a pivot table using the data shown above:

As soon as you click OK, a new worksheet is created with the Pivot Table in it.

While the Pivot Table has been created, you’d see no data in it. All you’d see is the Pivot Table name and a single line instruction on the left, and Pivot Table Fields on the right.

Now before we jump into analyzing data using this Pivot Table, let’s understand what are the nuts and bolts that make an Excel Pivot Table.

Also read: 10 Excel Pivot Table Keyboard Shortcuts

The Nuts & Bolts of an Excel Pivot Table

To use a Pivot Table efficiently, it’s important to know the components that create a pivot table.

In this section, you’ll learn about:

• Pivot Cache
• Values Area
• Rows Area
• Columns Area
• Filters Area

Pivot Cache

As soon as you create a Pivot Table using the data, something happens in the backend. Excel takes a snapshot of the data and stores it in its memory. This snapshot is called the Pivot Cache.

When you create different views using a Pivot Table, Excel does not go back to the data source, rather it uses the Pivot Cache to quickly analyze the data and give you the summary/results.

The reason a pivot cache gets generated is to optimize the pivot table functioning. Even when you have thousands of rows of data, a pivot table is super fast in summarizing the data. You can drag and drop items in the rows/columns/values/filters boxes and it will instantly update the results.

Note: One downside of pivot cache is that it increases the size of your workbook. Since it’s a replica of the source data, when you create a pivot table, a copy of that data gets stored in the Pivot Cache.

Read More: What is Pivot Cache and How to Best Use It.

Values Area

The Values Area is what holds the calculations/values.

Based on the data set shown at the beginning of the tutorial, if you quickly want to calculate total sales by region in each month, you can get a pivot table as shown below (we’ll see how to create this later in the tutorial).

The area highlighted in orange is the Values Area.

In this example, it has the total sales in each month for the four regions.

Rows Area

The headings to the left of the Values area makes the Rows area.

In the example below, the Rows area contains the regions (highlighted in red):

Columns Area

The headings at the top of the Values area makes the Columns area.

In the example below, Columns area contains the months (highlighted in red):

Filters Area

Filters area is an optional filter that you can use to further drill down in the data set.

For example, if you only want to see the sales for Multiline retailers, you can select that option from the drop down (highlighted in the image below), and the Pivot Table would update with the data for Multiline retailers only.

Analyzing Data Using the Pivot Table

Now, let’s try and answer the questions by using the Pivot Table we have created.

Click here to download the sample data and follow along.

To analyze data using a Pivot Table, you need to decide how you want the data summary to look in the final result. For example, you may want all the regions in the left and the total sales right next to it. Once you have this clarity in mind, you can simply drag and drop the relevant fields in the Pivot Table.

In the Pivot Tabe Fields section, you have the fields and the areas (as highlighted below):

The Fields are created based on the backend data used for the Pivot Table. The Areas section is where you place the fields, and according to where a field goes, your data is updated in the Pivot Table.

It’s a simple drag and drop mechanism, where you can simply drag a field and put it in one of the four areas. As soon as you do this, it will appear in the Pivot Table in the worksheet.

Now let’s try and answer the questions your manager had using this Pivot Table.

Q1: What were the total sales in the South region?

Drag the Region field in the Rows area and the Revenue field in the Values area. It would automatically update the Pivot Table in the worksheet.

Note that as soon as you drop the Revenue field in the Values area, it becomes Sum of Revenue. By default, Excel sums all the values for a given region and shows the total. If you want, you can change this to Count, Average, or other statistics metrics. In this case, the sum is what we needed.

The answer to this question would be 21225800.

Q2 What are the top five retailers by sales?

Drag the Customer field in the Row area and Revenue field in the values area. In case, there are any other fields in the area section and you want to remove it, simply select it and drag it out of it.

You’ll get a Pivot Table as shown below:

Note that by default, the items (in this case the customers) are sorted in an alphabetical order.

To get the top five retailers, you can simply sort this list and use the top five customer names. To do this:

This will give you a sorted list based on total sales.

Q3: How did The Home Depot’s performance compare against other retailers in the South?

You can do a lot of analysis for this question, but here let’s just try and compare the sales.

Drag the Region Field in the Rows area. Now drag the Customer field in the Rows area below the Region field. When you do this, Excel would understand that you want to categorize your data first by region and then by customers within the regions. You’ll have something as shown below:

Now drag the Revenue field in the Values area and you’ll have the sales for each customer (as well as the overall region).

You can sort the retailers based on the sales figures by following the below steps:

• Right-click on a cell that has the sales value for any retailer.
• Go to Sort –> Sort Largest to Smallest.

This would instantly sort all the retailers by the sales value.

Now you can quickly scan through the South region and identify that The Home Depot sales were 3004600 and it did better than four retailers in the South region.

Now there are more than one ways to skin the cat. You can also put the Region in the Filter area and then only select the South Region.

Click here to download the sample data.

I hope this tutorial gives you a basic overview of Excel Pivot Tables and helps you in getting started with it.

Here are some more Pivot Table Tutorials you may like:

• Preparing Source Data For Pivot Table.
• How to Apply Conditional Formatting in a Pivot Table in Excel.
• How to Group Dates in Pivot Tables in Excel.
• How to Group Numbers in Pivot Table in Excel.
• How to Filter Data in a Pivot Table in Excel.
• Using Slicers in Excel Pivot Table.
• How to Replace Blank Cells with Zeros in Excel Pivot Tables.
• How to Add and Use an Excel Pivot Table Calculated Fields.
• How to Refresh Pivot Table in Excel.

Home > Microsoft Excel > How to Create a Pivot Table in Excel? — The Easiest guide

If you ask anyone with decent experience in using Excel, about the most useful Excel feature, they will vouch for the Excel Pivot Table. It is one of the most searched Excel features on the internet, and for good reason. 

Related:

Creating A Dynamic Pivot Chart Title Using Slicers

Using Getpivotdata In Excel

Dashboards In Excel Using Pivot Tables, Pivot Charts And Slicers

In this guide, let’s see what makes the Pivot table one of the most popular and powerful Excel features. 

This guide covers 

What is a Pivot Table?

Microsoft describes a Pivot Table in Excel (or PivotTable if you’re using the trademarked function name!) as “an interactive way to quickly summarize large amounts of data”. It’s a pretty good description. 

What is the use of a Pivot Table in Excel?

The Excel Pivot Table function is an essential part of data analysis in Excel. Before the Pivot Table came along you’d need multiple functions tied together in a complicated and convoluted way to perform the same action that just takes a few clicks in a Pivot Table.

To say they revolutionised the way the average Excel user performs data analysis is an understatement. They are such a big deal that they have their own Wikipedia page. 

For the end-user, Pivot Tables are remarkably simple to use and easy to learn. There are hundreds of brilliant articles on how to create your first Pivot Table as well as some excellent lessons on YouTube.

We’re going to contribute by showing you some of our highest rated videos that teach you how to create a Pivot Table in Excel. 

If for any reason you don’t get it the first time, don’t worry, we’ve included multiple Pivot Table tutorials to help you master this essential skill.

If you have an hour to dedicate to a Pivot Table tutorial, then start with the video below. This is a recording of a live class we held in 2019 that takes you through everything you need to know to start analysing your data using Pivot Tables. These live classes are all free as part of a Simon Sez IT membership.

If that’s too much, scroll down and we have some other, shorter videos taken straight from our Excel courses.

How does an Excel Pivot Table work?

All Pivot Tables start life as a boring old range of data. But once you create a Pivot Table, Excel takes a quick look at the data and stores it in its cache. 

This is called the Pivot cache and it is responsible for the super fast calculation of summaries that Pivot Tables are known for. 

Each time you add or remove data from the Excel Pivot Table, Excel does not deal with the source data, rather it uses this Pivot Cache as a quick shortcut.  

Also Read:

Introduction To Power Pivot and Power Query In Excel

Getting Started With Power Pivot: Advanced Excel

Excel Crash Course – Learn Pivot Tables In 1 Hour

How to Create a Pivot Table in Excel?

Step 1: Turn the Data Range into a Table

You can create a Pivot Table in Excel from a range but we strongly recommend that you turn your range into a table as this makes it a lot simpler to add or remove data later on.

 For example:

A few golden rules about your data range or table before you create an Excel Pivot Table with it:

• Every column should have a header. If one is missing, you won’t be able to create a Pivot Table.
• There should be no empty rows. There can be the odd empty cell, but no full empty rows. This can mess up a few things.

Step 2: Open the Create Pivot Table Wizard

Once you’ve turned your range into a table (use Ctrl-T to do this quickly!) you then need to select a cell in that table, go to Insert on the ribbon and select Pivot Table on the far left.

This brings up the Create Pivot Table Wizard where you can start selecting your Pivot Table options.

Step 3: Select the Source Table or Range for the Pivot Table

The first option you’ll notice is that Excel is asking you to select the table or range. Because we have already created a table and we were clicked into that table when we chose to insert the Pivot Table, Excel has done the hard work for us and has selected that table as our range of data.

Step 4: Set the Location of the Pivot Table

Select whether you create your Pivot Table in a new or an existing worksheet. Once you hit OK, you’ve created your first Pivot Table. Hurray!

What you’ll see next is a blank table to the left with a set of options on your right. These options are the Pivot Table fields and this is where the magic starts to happen. I’ll show you how to do this in the next section.

How to Add Data to an Excel Pivot Table?

Using the Pivot Table Fields panel you can now start to manipulate your data. 

Four Quadrants

A pivot table is based on these four quadrants:

• Filters
• Columns
• Rows
• Values

We’ll see what each of these quadrants mean in a minute. 

These four quadrants are the key to manipulating the data in your Pivot Table. You can now start to drag the values at the top of the Excel Pivot Table Fields section into the quadrants below. 

Values: 

The values quadrant is what decides the type and value of calculations that the Pivot Table should display. It is the meat of a Pivot Table so to speak.

 In the following image, the area bordered in red is the Values area in a Pivot Table. 

Rows: 

The rows quadrant is what decides the rows that the Pivot Table should display. The  Rows are used to slice the data in a suitable way that we are looking for.

 For example, you want to look at the total sales that occurred in different months. For this, you need to drag Months in the Rows quadrant.

 In the following image, the area bordered in green is the Rows area of a Pivot Table. 

Columns: 

The columns quadrant is what decides the columns that the Pivot Table should display. That is columns are used to further dice the data into a suitable format. 

 For example, you want to look at the total sales that occurred in different months across different departments. For this, you need to drag Months in the Rows quadrant and further drag Departments into the Columns quadrant. 

 In the following image, the area bordered in blue is the Columns area of a Pivot Table. 

Filters: 

The filters quadrant is optional and is used to further drill down your  Pivot Table. For example, you may want to look only at the sales value of the Detroit Branch. 

This can be done by dragging the Branch field into the filter quadrant. Now, you can select the branch you are looking for from the drop-down list and view only its data.

Value Field Settings 

How do you change what’s happening in your value field away from displaying the sum? Simple, you need Value Field Settings.

To access these select any value in your Pivot Table, go to analyze on the ribbon and select “Field Settings”. Alternatively,  click the little down arrow in the value quadrant and select “Value Field Settings”.

This brings up the options you have in relation to your values. You can average instead of sum, you can count or use Min or Max. You can then select how you show the values including adding some calculations and changing the number format.

Analyse data using Pivot Table

Depending on which quadrant you pick, the table will format differently so there are a few rules to stick to:

• Numbers nearly always go in the Values quadrant. This allows you to perform calculations, summaries, averages etc. all from within your Pivot Table.
• Dates often go in the Rows column because…
• Anything you put in the rows column will become the row headings, anything in the columns quadrant will become column headings so for ease of use put the data with more options in the Rows column (it’s easier to scroll down rather than across for ages).
• The Filters quadrant does what you’d expect, it applies a filter to the entire dataset. Super useful if you just want to show something specific.

Sales Values across Months

Say you have dates in your rows quadrant and a set of corresponding values in your values quadrant. Excel will automatically do a couple of things.

• It will condense the dates into months, quarters or years (depending on the data set).
• It will sum the values in the values field.

This is the  Pivot Table starting to work. From your dataset, it’s now summarising that data by month for you. All within a few clicks.

Of course, you may not want that exact data and you may not want to add it together. The amazing thing about the Excel Pivot Table function is just how flexible it is.

 You can drag and drop, remove and change the data within those quadrants as much as you want and you’ll start to see just how powerful Pivot Tables are.

Sales Values across months in Each branch.

The data in our example is sales data. Above we’re seeing sales by month which is useful. But what if we wanted to see sales by branch and by date? 

Easy, we just drop the branch data into the rows column, under the date and we get a breakdown of that as well:

Sales Values across months in Each branch for each department.

If we wanted to get even more detail we could then add the departments to the column data and we’d see a summary of sales by branch, by the department and by date! You can quickly see that with very little effort on our part we can now draw really meaningful insight from our dataset:

What are the Benefits of Pivot Tables?

All that an Excel Pivot table does is help you effortlessly slice and dice your data. A normal Excel sheet or table might not suffice for your data needs.

Suppose you need to quickly find out the Bread sales in January that occurred in the Detroit region, manually doing it each time using filters or formulas can be painstaking. 

Or if you need to quickly look at the top 5 performing regions in the coffee department, using an Excel function is akin to taking the roundabout way to reach your destination. 

An Excel Pivot Table achieves all this and more in just a few clicks. 

Slicers and Filters

If you’ve grasped the basics and you’re ready to conquer some more advanced pivot table tutorials, then you need to know all about Slicers and Filters.

By filtering and slicing your data in a Pivot Table you can start to get analyse specific areas of your dataset and pull out interesting patterns. Plus, if you want to create an interactive dashboard that others can use, you’ll want to master these functions. 

All this and so much more is explained in this video:

In this video our Excel expert Toby shows you everything you need to know about Slicers & Filters :

Suggested Reads: 

How To Use Excel Countifs: The Best Guide

Excel Sumifs & Sumif Functions – The No.1 Complete Guide

How To Protect Cells In Excel Workbooks-the Easiest Way

FAQs

Let’s wrap up

That’s enough Pivot Tables for today, isn’t it? In this guide, we looked at the basics of creating and using pivot tables. 

The key takeaway from this tutorial is that an Excel Pivot Table is a very versatile tool to drill down and look at your data. 

There are more interesting things to do with them and we’ll deal with them in later advanced guides. If you find this guide useful, check out our Excel courses for more high-quality comprehensive guides on advanced Excel topics. 

If all the above isn’t enough Pivot Table for you, then we’ve got an extended Pivot Table video here for you. It’s 40 minutes long, so get comfy.

Simon Sez IT has been teaching Excel for over ten years. For a low, monthly fee you can get access to 100+ IT training courses. 

Other Excel classes you might like:

• What-If Analysis in Excel
• Designing Better Spreadsheets in Excel
• Logical Functions in Excel

The pivot table is one of Microsoft Excel’s most powerful — and intimidating — functions. Pivot tables can help you summarize and make sense of large data sets. However, they also have a reputation for being complicated.

The good news is that learning how to create a pivot table in Excel is much easier than you may believe.

We’re going to walk you through the process of creating a pivot table and show you just how simple it is. First, though, let’s take a step back and make sure you understand exactly what a pivot table is, and why you might need to use one.

What is a pivot table?
What are pivot tables used for?
How to Create a Pivot Table
Pivot Table Examples

In other words, pivot tables extract meaning from that seemingly endless jumble of numbers on your screen. And more specifically, it lets you group your data in different ways so you can draw helpful conclusions more easily.

The «pivot» part of a pivot table stems from the fact that you can rotate (or pivot) the data in the table to view it from a different perspective. To be clear, you’re not adding to, subtracting from, or otherwise changing your data when you make a pivot. Instead, you’re simply reorganizing the data so you can reveal useful information.

What are pivot tables used for?

If you’re still feeling a bit confused about what pivot tables actually do, don’t worry. This is one of those technologies that are much easier to understand once you’ve seen it in action.

The purpose of pivot tables is to offer user-friendly ways to quickly summarize large amounts of data. They can be used to better understand, display, and analyze numerical data in detail.

With this information, you can help identify and answer unanticipated questions surrounding the data.

Here are seven hypothetical scenarios where a pivot table could be helpful.

1. Comparing Sales Totals of Different Products

Let’s say you have a worksheet that contains monthly sales data for three different products — product 1, product 2, and product 3. You want to figure out which of the three has been generating the most revenue.

One way would be to look through the worksheet and manually add the corresponding sales figure to a running total every time product 1 appears. The same process can then be done for product 2, and product 3 until you have totals for all of them. Piece of cake, right?

Imagine, now, that your monthly sales worksheet has thousands upon thousands of rows. Manually sorting through each necessary piece of data could literally take a lifetime.

With pivot tables, you can automatically aggregate all of the sales figures for product 1, product 2, and product 3 — and calculate their respective sums — in less than a minute.

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2. Showing Product Sales as Percentages of Total Sales

Pivot tables inherently show the totals of each row or column when created. That’s not the only figure you can automatically produce, however.

Let’s say you entered quarterly sales numbers for three separate products into an Excel sheet and turned this data into a pivot table. The pivot table automatically gives you three totals at the bottom of each column — having added up each product’s quarterly sales.

But what if you wanted to find the percentage these product sales contributed to all company sales, rather than just those products’ sales totals?

With a pivot table, instead of just the column total, you can configure each column to give you the column’s percentage of all three column totals.

Let’s say three products totaled $200,000 in sales. The first product made $45,000, you can edit a pivot table to instead say this product contributed 22.5% of all company sales.

To show product sales as percentages of total sales in a pivot table, simply right-click the cell carrying a sales total and select Show Values As > % of Grand Total.

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3. Combining Duplicate Data

In this scenario, you’ve just completed a blog redesign and had to update many URLs. Unfortunately, your blog reporting software didn’t handle the change well and split the «view» metrics for single posts between two different URLs.

In your spreadsheet, you now have two separate instances of each individual blog post. To get accurate data, you need to combine the view totals for each of these duplicates.

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Instead of having to manually search for and combine all the metrics from the duplicates, you can summarize your data (via pivot table) by blog post title.

Voilà, the view metrics from those duplicate posts will be aggregated automatically.

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4. Getting an Employee Headcount for Separate Departments

Pivot tables are helpful for automatically calculating things that you can’t easily find in a basic Excel table. One of those things is counting rows that all have something in common.

For instance, let’s say you have a list of employees in an Excel sheet. Next to the employees’ names are the respective departments they belong to. You can create a pivot table from this data that shows you each department’s name and the number of employees that belong to those departments.

The pivot table’s automated functions effectively eliminate your task of sorting the Excel sheet by department name and counting each row manually.

5. Adding Default Values to Empty Cells

Not every dataset you enter into Excel will populate every cell. If you’re waiting for new data to come in, you might have lots of empty cells that look confusing or need further explanation.

That’s where pivot tables come in.

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You can easily customize a pivot table to fill empty cells with a default value, such as $0, or TBD (for «to be determined»). For large data tables, being able to tag these cells quickly is a valuable feature when many people are reviewing the same sheet.

To automatically format the empty cells of your pivot table, right-click your table and click PivotTable Options.

In the window that appears, check the box labeled Empty Cells As and enter what you’d like displayed when a cell has no other value.

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1. Enter your data into a range of rows and columns.
2. Sort your data by a specific attribute.
3. Highlight your cells to create your pivot table.
4. Drag and drop a field into the «Row Labels» area.
5. Drag and drop a field into the «Values» area.
6. Fine-tune your calculations.

Now that you have a better sense of what pivot tables can be used for, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how to actually create one.

Step 1. Enter your data into a range of rows and columns.

Every pivot table in Excel starts with a basic Excel table, where all your data is housed. To create this table, simply enter your values into a specific set of rows and columns. Use the topmost row or the topmost column to categorize your values by what they represent.

For example, to create an Excel table of blog post performance data, you might have:

• A column listing each «Top Pages.»
• A column listing each URL’s «Clicks.»
• A column listing each post’s «Impressions.»

We’ll be using that example in the steps that follow.

Step 2. Sort your data by a specific attribute.

Once you’ve entered all your data into your Excel sheet, you’ll want to sort your data by attribute. This will make your information easier to manage once it becomes a pivot table.

To sort your data, click the Data tab in the top navigation bar and select the Sort icon underneath it. In the window that appears, you can sort your data by any column you want and in any order.

For example, to sort your Excel sheet by «Views to Date,» select this column title under Column and then select whether you want to order your posts from smallest to largest, or from largest to smallest.

Select OK on the bottom-right of the Sort window.

Now, you’ve successfully reordered each row of your Excel sheet by the number of views each blog post has received.

Step 3. Highlight your cells to create your pivot table.

Once you’ve entered and sorted your data, highlight the cells you’d like to summarize in a pivot table. Click Insert along the top navigation, and select the PivotTable icon.

You can also click anywhere in your worksheet, select «PivotTable,» and manually enter the range of cells you’d like included in the PivotTable.

This opens an options box. Here you can select whether or not to launch this pivot table in a new worksheet or keep it in the existing worksheet, in addition to setting your cell range.

If you open a new sheet, you can navigate to and away from it at the bottom of your Excel workbook. Once you’ve chosen, click OK.

Alternatively, you can highlight your cells, select Recommended PivotTables to the right of the PivotTable icon, and open a pivot table with pre-set suggestions for how to organize each row and column.

Note: If using an earlier version of Excel, «PivotTables» may be under Tables or Data along the top navigation, rather than «Insert.» In Google Sheets, you can create pivot tables from the Data dropdown along the top navigation.

Step 4. Drag and drop a field into the «Row Labels» area.

After you’ve completed Step 3, Excel will create a blank pivot table for you.

Your next step is to drag and drop a field — labeled according to the names of the columns in your spreadsheet — into the Row Labels area. This will determine what unique identifier the pivot table will organize your data by.

For example, let’s say you want to organize a bunch of blogging data by post title. To do that, you’d simply click and drag the “Top pages” field to the «Row Labels» area.

Note: Your pivot table may look different depending on which version of Excel you’re working with. However, the general principles remain the same.

Step 5. Drag and drop a field into the «Values» area.

Once you’ve established how you’re going to organize your data, your next step is to add in some values by dragging a field into the Values area.

Sticking with the blogging data example, let’s say you want to summarize blog post views by title. To do this, you’d simply drag the «Views» field into the Values area.

Step 6. Fine-tune your calculations.

The sum of a particular value will be calculated by default, but you can easily change this to something like average, maximum, or minimum depending on what you want to calculate.

On a Mac, you can do this by clicking on the small i next to a value in the «Values» area, selecting the option you want, and clicking «OK.» Once you’ve made your selection, your pivot table will be updated accordingly.

If you’re using a PC, you’ll need to click on the small upside-down triangle next to your value and select Value Field Settings to access the menu.

When you’ve categorized your data to your liking, save your work and use it as you please.

Pivot Table Examples

From managing money to keeping tabs on your marketing effort, pivot tables can help you keep track of important data. The possibilities are endless!

See three pivot table examples below to keep you inspired.

1. Creating a PTO Summary and Tracker

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If you’re in HR, running a business, or leading a small team, managing employees’ vacations is essential. This pivot allows you to seamlessly track this data.

All you need to do is import your employee’s identification data along with the following data:

• Sick time.
• Hours of PTO.
• Company holidays.
• Overtime hours.
• Employee’s regular number of hours.

From there, you can sort your pivot table by any of these categories.

2. Building a Budget

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Whether you’re running a project or just managing your own money, pivot tables are an excellent tool for tracking spend.

The simplest budget just requires the following categories:

• Date of transaction
• Withdrawal/Expenses
• Deposit/Income
• Description
• Any overarching categories (like paid ads or contractor fees)

With this information, you can see your biggest expenses and brainstorm ways to save.

3. Tracking Your Campaign Performance

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Pivot tables can help your team assess the performance of your marketing campaigns.

In this example, campaign performance is split by region. You can easily which country had the highest conversions during different campaigns.

This can help you identify tactics that perform well in each region and where advertisements need to be changed.

Digging Deeper With Pivot Tables

You’ve now learned the basics of pivot table creation in Excel. With this understanding, you can figure out what you need from your pivot table and find the solutions you’re looking for.

For example, you may notice that the data in your pivot table isn’t sorted the way you’d like. If this is the case, Excel’s Sort function can help you out. Alternatively, you may need to incorporate data from another source into your reporting, in which case the VLOOKUP function could come in handy.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in December 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.