I upgraded my Excel PivotTable with these 3 simple features
I’m probably guilty of making Excel spreadsheets more complicated than they need to be, but I have one rule I keep coming back to: if I’m going to build a PivotTable, I want to actually enjoy using it. The basic summary is useful, but a few small additions can make a surprisingly big difference.
After converting my data into a table with Ctrl+T, creating a PivotTable in a new worksheet via Insert > PivotTable, and dragging fields into the different areas of the PivotTable Fields pane, it’s easy to stop there. But that’s only the start. I usually add three simple features—slicers, timelines, and PivotCharts—to make the results easier to filter, explore, and understand.
For the examples in this article, I’m using a fictional 500-row sales ledger. You can download a free copy of this worksheet to try the three features yourself. When you click the link, you’ll find the download button in the top-right corner.