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Introducing Pivot Tables
2:01 with Tyler TallonA pivot table is a dynamic report that can summarize and display data in various ways. Let's take a look at how interactive pivot tables are used and practice rearranging data quickly so that we can analyze interrelationships between the data.
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Please note that this is a new spreadsheet, different from the one you used in the previous stage:
[MUSIC]
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Let's talk about one of my favorite
0:03
tool in Excel the Pivot Table.
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A pivot table is a dynamic
report that can summarize and
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display data in various ways.
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I love how interactive pivot tables are.
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They allow you to
rearrange data quickly so
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that you can analyze
interrelationships between the data.
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A few people here at Treehouse
have told me they're excited for
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me to explain how pivot tables work.
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Pivot tables are an awesome tool because
of how they expose relationships
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between data.
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Let's talk about how they work.
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Here we have a spreadsheet that
shows sales for a fictional store.
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And if you'll like to follow along we
can find a link to this spreadsheet in
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the project files.
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Before we create the pivot table,
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we need to make sure that
the data is formatted correctly.
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For the pivot table to work properly,
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we need to make sure that each
column represents a category.
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And that each column has a header,
telling us what that category is.
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In addition to properly formatted columns,
you'll also need properly formatted rows.
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Each row should contain an entity,
or instance of a particular record.
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Also, make sure there are no blank columns
or rows, or summary columns or rows.
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Let's look at an example of a spreadsheet
that is not formatted properly.
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On the Store Data2 tab you'll
notice we have a blank column for
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column D and
we have blank rows and subtotals.
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Also, there are no category headers for
the first three columns.
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We would not be able to use this data for
a pivot table until we cleaned it up.
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Now let's look at one that
is formatted properly.
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You'll notice there are no blank rows or
columns and no summary or sub total rows.
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You'll also notice we have headers for
each category.
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Now that we have conferred our
data is formatted properly,
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let's move on to the next video where
I'll show how to build a pivot table
1:57
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