Introducing Pivot Tables

[MUSIC] 0:00 Let's talk about one of my favorite 0:03 tool in Excel the Pivot Table. 0:08 A pivot table is a dynamic report that can summarize and 0:13 display data in various ways. 0:17 I love how interactive pivot tables are. 0:19 They allow you to rearrange data quickly so 0:22 that you can analyze interrelationships between the data. 0:24 A few people here at Treehouse have told me they're excited for 0:28 me to explain how pivot tables work. 0:31 Pivot tables are an awesome tool because of how they expose relationships 0:33 between data. 0:37 Let's talk about how they work. 0:39 Here we have a spreadsheet that shows sales for a fictional store. 0:41 And if you'll like to follow along we can find a link to this spreadsheet in 0:45 the project files. 0:48 Before we create the pivot table, 0:50 we need to make sure that the data is formatted correctly. 0:52 For the pivot table to work properly, 0:55 we need to make sure that each column represents a category. 0:57 And that each column has a header, telling us what that category is. 1:01 In addition to properly formatted columns, you'll also need properly formatted rows. 1:05 Each row should contain an entity, or instance of a particular record. 1:10 Also, make sure there are no blank columns or rows, or summary columns or rows. 1:15 Let's look at an example of a spreadsheet that is not formatted properly. 1:22 On the Store Data2 tab you'll notice we have a blank column for 1:26 column D and we have blank rows and subtotals. 1:30 Also, there are no category headers for the first three columns. 1:33 We would not be able to use this data for a pivot table until we cleaned it up. 1:38 Now let's look at one that is formatted properly. 1:42 You'll notice there are no blank rows or columns and no summary or sub total rows. 1:45 You'll also notice we have headers for each category. 1:51 Now that we have conferred our data is formatted properly, 1:54 let's move on to the next video where I'll show how to build a pivot table 1:57