A Complete Guide to Pivot Tables

r3lody (Raymond Lodato) writes "Like most people, I've only scratched the surface (well, maybe I gouged it a bit) of the capabilities of the Microsoft Office products. There are more features buried in them than most users ever discover. I use Microsoft Excel frequently in my job to analyze all sorts of data. When they came out with Pivot Tables, I dabbled in them and found several uses for them. However, documentation being what it is, I never really got to understand and utilize Pivot Tables' full capabilities. Now, Apress has published A Complete Guide to Pivot Tables: A Visual Approach, by Paul Cornell." Read on for the rest of Lodato's review.

A Complete Guide to Pivot Tables: A Visual Approach
author	Paul Cornell
pages	368
publisher	Apress
rating	10/10
reviewer	Raymond Lodato (rlodato AT yahoo DOT com)
ISBN	1590594320
summary	A well-researched step-by-step tutorial on the use and programming of Microsoft Excel PivotTables for data analysis.

If you have any need to analyze data in Excel, you must read this book. I learned so much more about PivotTables after I read it that they are now actually useful, rather than just being something I would occasionally try out. Every chapter is packed with excellent information in an easy-to-follow format. A beginning to intermediate user can understand most of the book; only the chapter on programming PivotTables requires intermediate to advanced knowledge to fully comprehend.

Cornell takes a tutorial approach to explaining what PivotTables are, what they are capable of doing, and how you can apply them to your needs. Each chapter in the Complete Guide gives you an overview of a single topic, a series of step-by-step examples, a Try-It section for more practice, and a summary of next steps. The book was written for Excel 2003, but most of the techniques can be applied to Excel 2002 and even Excel 2000.

When you read this book, I would recommend that you sit at your computer to try these techniques as you read them. I tried to just read the book at first, but you really get itchy to try each feature out. Take it in sequence, as there is a definite building from one chapter to the next.

Chapter 1 gives you an overview of the PivotTable feature, what it's meant to do, and why you would use it. Chapter 2 starts the in-depth training of building basic PivotTables from Excel Lists, external data sources, other PivotTables, etc. It also includes tips on formatting the information and tweaking the fields and table to your liking. Chapter 3 goes even deeper, with information on advanced settings, filters, calculated fields, and other little gems that make analysis easier. These three chapters complete your basic training and lead to chapter 4, "Using PivotTables in the Real World." Paul proceeds to give not just one, but three examples of how PivotTables could be used to provide insight into company operations.

While everything I'd known about PivotTables before picking up this book was covered in the first three chapters, the last three chapters explain additional capabilities that really make Excel valuable for data analysis. Chapter 5 explains PivotCharts, which are simply a graphical representation of the information shown in a PivotTable. Paul goes into detail on the different chart types and how they interact with the underlying PivotTable.

If you need to distill and analyze multidimensional, relational data, PivotTables are up to the task, as chapter 6 will demonstrate. The book describes how you use cube files, OLAP databases, and Microsoft Query to get the data and manipulate it. If you're a really capable programmer, comfortable with VBA, chapter 7 shows you how to work with PivotTable programmatically. There is program after program showing you exactly how to get at the data, massage it, and create the resulting PivotTable.

Finally, there is one appendix that describes the differences between Excel 2000, Excel 2002, and Excel 2003. I was originally reviewing this book while using a computer with Excel 2000. I was delighted to find out that most of the information in the book works exactly as Paul described (although the screen shots didn't match). I did recheck some of the examples on my other machine running Excel 2002, and had no problems at all.

Granted, this book is specifically written for Microsoft Excel. However, OpenOffice, the free competitor from Sun MicroSystems, mimics most of the Microsoft Office suite. How does it compare, you ask? Well, OpenOffice has a similar facility to PivotTables, called DataPilot; however, DataPilot is primitive in comparison. For example, you must select the data to summarize, choose (from the menu bar) Data --> DataPilot --> Start, then drag the fields to the appropriate place in the diagram and click OK. Like Excel, you can freely move the fields between row, column, and data areas, and change the data operation from Sum to Min, Max, or a number of others. Unlike Excel, there isn't much more you can do. You don't have Page fields; you can't sort fields on their data; PivotCharts aren't represented; and there's no programming. If you only want to do simple data analysis in OpenOffice, you can get the basics from chapters 1 and 2 of this book.

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Multi-dimensional databases

[gtrubetskoy]

For those who do not understand what multi-dimensional database is, here is how I explain it to myself:

A traditional relational database has two dimensions - rows and columns. Now if you take a table and make a copy of it to separate records by year (e.g. 2004data, 2003data, 2002data, etc.), you get a 3rd dimension. And if you were to take your entire database and make a copy of it to separate it by something else, you now have a 4th dimension. Of course the problem with all this would be inability to tie data in one database to data in another in an easy way.

A multi-dimensional database is something that allows you to add dimensions ad-infinitum _and_ query it in a clean way.

Whats the most power feature in Excel?

[stecoop]

I rank Pivot Tables about #1 in usefullness. Followed by autofilter, Vlookup, conditional Formating and regular old little VBS scripts. What are some of the higher features you guys use?

Re:Dissing OpenOffice

[0racle]

Many, many people live and die by pivot tables, well people that use Excel to any extent do, it is only obscure to people that use Excel as if it was a pad of paper. As such, any spreadsheet product that did not have a similar feature that was at least as usefull and powerfull would indeed be primative, and pretty much useless to anyone using Excel professionally. Don't let zealotry dictate what tools you use.

Re:What IS a pivot table anyway?

[Ohreally_factor]

But I think one could expect to be given a clue if the review of The Washington Manual Hematology and Oncology Subspecialty Consult to explain it, especially if that review appeared in a general purpose tech site.

Besides which, hematology and oncology are not obscure terms, and it is quite easy to find a definition. Pivot Tables, otoh, are a specialized phrase to a specific program (or programs, I guess, given the mentions of the Lotus product above), and even the review itself points out that this is a "buried feature".

Saying, "If you have to ask, you don't need to know," in this situation is a bit rude.

Re:A simple example of pivot tables

[aoteoroa]

Thanks sjbe.

So you can use a pivot table to quickly sort and group data. When does it make sense to use a pivot table instead of a simple sql query such as:

SELECT sum(Pop) FROM Country GROUP BY Continent ;
or
SELECT sum(GDP) FROM country GROUP BY Continent ;

Excel Pivot Tables Are Limited

[tgraupmann]

Excel Pivot tables pretty much suck. With Excel 2000 you can only pivot on a tiny 8k maximum worth of unique records. With Excel 2003 it goes up to 32k unique records. I have 1G of RAM, so this is a useless amount. Pivot tables are useless for everything but a grocery list for a block party.