Ravindra BagaleCourses & study guides

7. PivotTables and PivotCharts

7.1 Creating a PivotTable

Steps in Excel

  1. Make sure the source is a clean Table (tblOrders): one header row, no blank rows, no merged cells, one type of data per column.
  2. Click inside it › Insert › Tables › PivotTable (in Microsoft 365 the button may show From Table/Range – may vary by version).
  3. Table/Range: tblOrders › choose New Worksheet › (optional) tick Add this data to the Data Model if you need Distinct Count or multiple tables › OK.
  4. The PivotTable Fields pane opens on the right. Tick or drag fields into the areas.
  5. Two new ribbon tabs appear when a cell of the PivotTable is selected: PivotTable Analyze and Design.
  6. Recommended PivotTables (Insert › Tables) suggests ready layouts – useful for beginners.

Worked example – mini dataset of Module 3. Drag City to Rows and Amount to Values:

Row Labels Sum of Amount
Kolhapur 232
Nagpur 240
Nashik 360
Pune 544
Sambhaji Nagar 195
Solapur 1,299
Grand Total 2,870

Ravindra Bagale's Tip

Many students select a range (A1:I500) for a PivotTable – then, when new rows are added, they don't show up even after a refresh. Always make a Table (Ctrl + T) first and build the PivotTable on that Table. If the source has an empty header or merged cells, the PivotTable won't be created – clean the data first.

Practice task

Create a PivotTable of sales by City from tblOrders on a new sheet named Pivot_City. Add five new orders to the Table and refresh to see them included.