Wish you a happy new year and Welcome back to Chandoo.org.
So how did you celebrate the new year’s eve? We put the kids to sleep early and partied till 1. Next day, we took them to a park. The kids loved grass, trees and ran like wind.
What about you?
As for the new year plans, I think it is fair to review how the plans I made last year worked out. Last year, my goals were,
- run 20k
- start excel school
- travel less
- do what I enjoy, more.
Except the running goal, I achieved everything else. It feels good to have not traveled at all and run 3 batches of Excel School in last year. Since I love writing and learning new things, I quit my job in April last year to work on this blog full-time. It seems like the best decision in my life so far.
This year too I have simple goals.
- Run & workout often: After I quit my job, I started my business from home. This meant work intertwined with parenting. Since we have twins, taking time out for simple tasks like jogging seemed impossible on some days. I did workout on a lot of days, but my fitness has gone-down in last one year. This year I plan to dedicate more time to working out and running.
- Spread Excel School to More People: Excel School has been a grand success since its launch. I want to make even more people awesome in Excel in this year.
- Start PowerPoint School: You heard me right. I have been preparing material & gathering ideas on running a PowerPoint training program. Very soon, you will hear about it.
- Conduct 2 Live Excel Workshops: I have been itching to conduct live workshops on MS Excel & related topics. But due to job and parenting, I could not say yes to any opportunities that came along. This year, the scene is different. So I plan to conduct at least 2 live Excel Workshops and meet some of you face to face this year.
- Learn more: Even though I did not aim for it, last year I ended up reading a lot of books and blogs. This year, I plan to continue the trend. I want to become good in Pivot Tables, Data Analysis, Learn tools like Tableau, Access, Become a better businessman.
What awesome things you are planning to accomplish this year? And how do you think Chandoo.org can help you in achieving them? Please share using comments.
Excel Links:
Here are some Excel & Visualization related links that I recommend. Go thru them to learn something awesome.
The joy of stats – Recommended Video Talk
Prof. Hans Rosling is one my Data Visualization Gurus. He is passionate about statistics and how it can help us understand data better. In this very entertaining talk, he tells us how statistics is joy. Please set aside an hour and watch this. It is totally beautiful.
A very good article from UXMatters website on Dashboard Design Principles. I particularly liked the portion on “What data should we display?”.
Importing Excel Data in to Access
Danny explains the process behind importing Excel data in to Access. You can watch the whole thing in a short Youtube video. The explanation is very clear and easy to follow.
Learn 30 Excel Formulas in 30 Days
Debra at Contextures blog has started a new series on 30 formulas in 30 days. She opens the series with a bang by explaining the EXACT formula. I am going to follow this series and contribute to the discussion by writing 1-2 followup posts on chandoo.org. I suggest you follow it too. This is the easiest way to learn 30 different formulas in 30 days. PS: You can also learn 51 Excel formulas.
Using Excel to Build Crossword Puzzles
Have ever used Excel to build crossword puzzles? Dick Kusleika did. He shares with us a template & macro code to create crossword puzzles using Excel. Pretty interesting and cool stuff.
Browse more Excel Links or Share a link with me (email me at chandoo.d @ gmail.com)
13 Responses to “Using pivot tables to find out non performing customers”
To avoid the helper column and the macro, I would transpose the data into the format shown above (Name, Year, Sales). Now I can show more than one year, I can summarize - I can do many more things with it. ASAP Utilities (http://www.asap-utilities.com) has a new experimental feature that can easily transpose the table into the correct format. Much easier in my opinion.
David
Of course with alternative data structure, we can easily setup a slicer based solution so that everything works like clockwork with even less work.
David, I was just about to post the same!
In Contextures site, I remember there's a post on how to do that. Clearly, the way data is layed out on the very beginning is critical to get the best results, and even you may thinkg the original layout is the best way, it is clearly not. And that kind of mistakes are the ones I love ! because it teaches and trains you to avoid them, and how to think on the data structure the next time.
Eventually, you get to that place when you "see" the structure on the moment the client tells you the request, and then, you realized you had an ephiphany, that glorious moment when data is no longer a mistery to you!!!
Rgds,
Chandoo,
If the goal is to see the list of customers who have not business from yearX, I would change the helper column formula to :
=IF(selYear="all",sum(C4:M4),sum(offset(C4:M4,,selyear-2002,1,columns(C4:M4)-selyear+2002)))This formula will sum the sales from Selected Year to 2012.
JMarc
If you are already using a helper column and the combox box runs a macro after it changes, why not just adjust the macro and filter the source data?
Regards
I gotta say, it seems like you are giving 10 answers to 10 questions when your client REALLY wants to know is: "What is the last year "this" customer row had a non-zero Sales QTY?... You're missing the forest for the trees...
Change the helper column to:
=IFERROR(INDEX(tblSales[[#Headers],[Customer name]:[Sales 2012]],0,MATCH(9.99999999999999E+307,tblSales[[#This Row],[Customer name]:[Sales 2012]],1)),"NO SALES")
And yes, since I'm matching off of them for value, I would change the headers to straight "2002" instead of "Sales 2002" but you sort the table on the helper column and then and there you can answer all of your questions.
Hi thanks for this. Just can't figure out how you get the combo box to control the pivot table. Can you please advise?
Cheers
@Kevin.. You are welcome. To insert a combo box, go to Developer ribbon > Insert > form controls > combo box.
For more on various form controls and how to use them, please read this: http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/03/30/form-controls/
Thanks Chandoo. But I know how to insert a combobox, I was more referring to how does in control the year in the pivot table? Or is this obvious? I note that if I select the Selected Year from the PivotTable Field List it says "the field has no itens" whereas this would normally allow you to change the year??
Thanks again
worked it out thanks...
when =data!Q2 changes it changes the value in column N:N and then when you do a refreshall the pivottable vlaues get updated
Still not sure why PivotTable Field List says “the field has no itens"?? I created my own pivot table and could not repeat that.
Hi, I put the sales data in range(F5:P19) and added a column D with the title 'Last sales in year'. After that, in column D for each customer, the simple formula
=2000+MATCH(1000000,E5:P5)
will provide the last year in which that particular customer had any sales, which can than easily be managed by autofilter.
Somewhat longer but perhaps a bit more solid (with the column titles in row 4):
=RIGHT(INDEX($F$4:$P$19,1,MATCH(1000000,F5:P5)),4)
[…] Finding non-performing customers using Pivot Tables […]