Microsoft Excel – PivotTables Reports

Microsoft Excel has many features that are often overlooked. One feature that I’ve found useful in the past is PivotTable Reports. PivotTable Reports allow you to quickly sort large amounts of information. In the past I used it to keep track of equipment and personnel at a large aboveground mine in Southern California. For this example I’m going to use a smaller dataset from Excel Help.

The first step to create a pivot table is to go to Data > PivotTable and PivotChart Report… from the menu bar.

This will bring up a wizard that will help collect the data for the PivotTable.

For this example I’m using the data in the current worksheet, but you could get data from an external data sources.

Next highlight the data you want to create a report for.

Now choose to keep the data in the worksheet or in an existing worksheet.

Next drag the items from the PivotTable Field List to the places to show the report that is needed.

As you drag and drop the fields the PivotTable Report shows the data. Once finished the PivotTable should look something like this:

The PivotTable is easily modified by using the drop down arrows. One can remove data using them. For instance if you didn’t want to see golf, you could remove the data from the PivotTable.

Once unchecked, Golf will be removed from the PivotTable

Hopefully you can see the benefits of using PivotTables and will find a way to use them.