In this post we will learn how to use the Advanced Filter option using VBA to allow us to filter our data on a separate sheet. This has been requested by a lot of our readers and here is how we will use them.

What we need to get this done.
1. Some data that we need filtering on.
2. Define what options we need as drop down lists
3. A cup of coffee
In the sample data, I have defined 4 options to be available as drop down list; this has been done by creating a new sheet called as “Master”. I then copied the existing columns data into this sheet and used the Remove Duplicates feature to get the unique list of items that was required for the drop downs.

The named ranges were created using the INDEX function as shown below
| Named Range | Formula |
| prd | =Master!$A$2:INDEX(Master!$A:$A,COUNTA(Master!$A:$A)) |
| rgn | =Master!$B$2:INDEX(Master!$B:$B,COUNTA(Master!$B:$B)) |
| cust | =Master!$C$2:INDEX(Master!$C:$C,COUNTA(Master!$C:$C)) |
| agnt | =Master!$D$2:INDEX(Master!$D:$D,COUNTA(Master!$D:$D)) |
Now we need to setup the sheet where we need the filtered data to be displayed. Headings were put in cells B5 to B8 and the drop down (using the Data Validation—List) feature was put in cells C5 to C8. Now we need to create or criteria fields in the RawData sheet, this is a requirement and cannot be any place else. When you use the Advanced Filter dialog box and try to place the output onto another sheet Excel will display a message saying “You can only copy data to the Active Sheet”. We will overcome this limit by using VBA and telling Excel where to put the filtered data. I used the cells M1 to P1 to define the headings and cells M2 to P2 to get the actual options from the “Filter Sheet”
| Cells | Formula |
| M2 | =Filter!C5 |
| N2 | =Filter!C6 |
| O2 | =Filter!C7 |
| P2 | =Filter!C8 |
Macro to run advanced filter and extract data
Sub FilterData()
Sheets("Filter").Select
Range("B10").Select
Range(Selection, Selection.End(xlToRight)).Select
Range(Selection, Selection.End(xlDown)).Select
Selection.Clear
Sheets(“RawData”).Range(“Table1[#All]”).AdvancedFilter Action:=xlFilterCopy, CriteriaRange:= _
Sheets(“RawData”).Range(“M1:P2”), CopyToRange:=Sheets(“Filter”).Range(“B10”), Unique:=True
Columns.AutoFit
Range(“B10”).Select
End Sub
First we ensure the current filtered data (in any) is cleared out before we run the code again and then we get the new filtered data from cell B10 onwards. Now let’s understand the actual code that filters our data here.
Sheets("RawData").Range("Table1[#All]").AdvancedFilter
Action:=xlFilterCopy,
CriteriaRange:=Sheets("RawData").Range("M1:P2"),
CopyToRange:=Sheets("Filter").Range("B10"),
Unique:=True
We converted our raw data into an excel table (Structured Reference Structured Reference), by doing this we no longer need to know how many rows our data actually goes down to, the “Table1[#All]” takes care of that for us.
We also need to specify that our data is in another sheet and we are trying to run Advanced Filter on that data range, this is done using the first line ” Sheets(“RawData”).Range(“Table1[#All]”).AdvancedFilter “.
Next we specify the action that we need which is Copy in our case, the other option is “xlFilterInPlace” which would filter right on our data itself.
Then we have specified the Criteria Range (which needs to be on the same sheet where the data is).
And finally we have specified where the output has to be sent to by using : “CopyToRange:=Sheets(“Filter”).Range(“B10″)”
We have also made sure that only Unique records are returned to us by turning Unique:=True.
Download Advanced Filter Demo File
Click here to download the demo file & use it to understand this technique.
Do you use Advanced filters to extract sub-sets of data?
Advanced filters are very powerful and very simple to setup. I use them often to quickly extract what I want.
What about you? Do you use them often? Please share your experiences, techniques & ideas using comments.
Learn more about extracting / consolidating data using VBA
Data extraction and consolidation are one of the most common activities done by reporting professionals & analysts. No wonder we speak about these areas a lot here too. Please check out these pages to learn more:
- Split an excel file in to many using Advanced Filters & VBA [with video]
- Move data from one sheet to many using VBA
- Split text on new line using VBA
- Consolidate data from multiple files in to one using VBA Macros
Want to lean more? Consider joining our VBA Classes
If you would like to learn more about VBA programming, Excel automation, creation of user forms, manipulating data in Access thru Excel etc., consider joining our online VBA Classes. This step-by-step program helps you become awesome in VBA.














49 Responses to “Interactive Pivot Table Calendar & Chart in Excel!”
Excellent post again from awesome chandoo.org
This is one of the post to evident, without using macros we can create excellent charts using available excel options.
Slicer is one of the useful option in excel 2010 .. excited to see more options in excel 2013.
Regards,
Saran
http://www.lostinexcel.blogspot.com
Nice one chandoo............... great work done.....
Cool article. Only downside was that I didn't see at first that I needed 2010. Guess I still have to wait awhile before getting to try this out myself.
I consider myself an Excel expert, but you constantly amaze me with posts like this. Fantastic calendar!
Good post, like this little trick!!
How to not show the value in the cell
format the cell to custom with the below
;;;
Could you add lists of holidays to be transferred to the calendar days?
Two lists would be needed: 1) for the holidays that stay fixed (eg, CHristmas), and 2) for the holidays that move around (eg, Thanksgiving).
Such lists would be prepared externally, and the program would transfer their information to the appropriate days.
Wow! This is something amazing. I am going to do some practicals with this and show a sales trend on this. As we have our sales plans weekly basis, this should impress by boss when put in dashboard. Cool.
And thanks1
Chandoo you have a knack of getting on to these great looking very creative ideas!
One thing with calendars I have seen before is not catering for able to enter notes or appointments or project milestones. But with this one it's easy enough to add the extra lines as you have done for the chart concept and link to this other type of info.
For 2003 we could replace slicers with a validation style dropdown couldn't we?
Chandoo, you are awesome;) i was using calender to show my reports, but i had made all months and then underneith date shows the value, man its really awesome . i am going to use this format for my reports.. only draw back for me is i am using 2007. hence no slicer.. may be have to modify with out slicer.
Why not use =weeknum() for the weeknum column?
Great tricks! I love trying to reproduce the charts myself to get the hang of 'em. This one was great.
My only issue is getting the VBA in the year object to refresh the data. I used the VBA provided at the link, and, I can see it in the Macros tab, but, when I click the spinner the data does not update. Any tips?
Thx!
3G
^^Ignore this! NOT ENOUGH COFFEE YET.
I forgot about the "Assign Macro" option
:-s
Just started at chandoo - this is great!
I opted to use the formula =IF(F6>F5,G5,G5+1) for my weeknum - worked for me (I didn't get all the way through the example, since I'm running Excel 2007 - so don't know if that'll affect anything later in the example). I'm open to comments on this alternative approach.
Thanks for creating this website!
VC (Excel student).
Very cool - but now I'm even more excited for the new time controls for Excel 2013!
Great calendar...
I wonder whether we can make a school calendar (Class, subjects, teachers) using this calendar, assuming the weekly plan is duplicated across the year.
I would love to be a part of creating a class schedule...I'm attempting to help a friend (gratis) to do just that - can you point me in the right direction or provide a sample of sorts?
[...] Wow – what do you think of the interactive calendar chart demo above? To achieve this impressive effect you must have Excel 2010 because it utilises slicers, which is a feature introduced in Excel 2010. Find out how this treasure was created on Chandoo’s page. [...]
Hello Chandoo,
Great works! I learn a lot from this website. Here is the problem I met when I follow your tutorial: once I run and save this cool pivot calendar chart , the size of excel file will increase every time. Could you let me know how to figure it out? Thank you for your time in advance.
An excel chart-fan from China.
I already figured it out.
wow, love the calendar, i'm a newbie, found this site and it's amazing.
Got it mostly figured out, but could do with help with your named range 'tblchosen'
I can build the pivots, link the calendars together but can't see how to use index(tblchosen...) to pull through the productivity figures
appreciate any help
thanks
Great. Miss the Today button. Will try and figure a way to add this to the file.
I want to start the week on Monday, not Sunday (MTWTFSS). Re-arranging the calendar tab works however, any month where the 1st is a Sunday starts on the second and totally omits Sun 1. I have been tinkerign for a while, but can't seem to figure this out.
Changing F2 on the 'Calcs' tab to 2 so that the week starts on Monday works.
Cutting & pasting Sunday on the 'Pivot Calendar' tab and moving all cells up 1 row works.
However, using April 2013 for example, you lose the 1st off of the pivot calendar so that the month starts on 2 April. What should happen is the first row should only show Sun 1 April and then the next row starts Mon 2 April. Still can't fugure out where the problem lies.
"Further Enhancements:
Adjust week start to Monday: Likewise, you can modify your formulas to adjust weekstart to Monday or any other day you fancy."
I have tinkered with this previously with no success, does anyone know which formulas require tinkering, I have only succeeded in breaking this in an effort start a week on a Monday.
[...] Interactivo Artículo original var dd_offset_from_content = 50; var dd_top_offset_from_content = 0; Tags: 2013, calendario, [...]
Completely off topic, but how do you create those animated pictures in your tutorials? It is not a movie (like the Youtube movie), so what software do you use to create such high quality "animated" pictires? Thanks
Jeroen
the animated pics are called Animated Gifs
they are made using Camtasia
Refer: http://chandoo.org/wp/about/what-we-use/
This is fairly easy to do just using calendar formulas, which would be quicker, and doesn't need VBA? Am I missing something?
[...] on how to generate an interactive calendar using pivot tables. Please check out Chandoo’s Interactive Pivot Table Calendar & Chart in Excel before reading this, as I want to go through how I used his method to adapt a calendar which was [...]
Great tip shared by you... howevr would appreciate if you could mention in your tricks about excel version. The example above would work only in excel 2010 and above I believe. Please help me if there is any way we can use the tip in excel 2007 as well..
Many Thanks,
Regards,
FK
Hi, I'm going to give this a shot, but one small question before I do. Can a linked cell be updated based on the date that is selected from the calendar? The calendar is really cool and this would make is especially good to use (and easy and fast).
Regards,
swissfish.
This post is awesome, and using your instructions, I was able to get this to work with a pivot table that pulls directly from a Project Server database. It was a bit complicated to get the day to sum correctly, but I managed to finagle it. I hope you don't mind if I link back to you when I post my instructions.
Thanks for giving me a starting point for this!
[...] http://chandoo.org/wp/2012/09/12/interactive-pivot-calendar/ [...]
This is great, and pretty much everything I was looking for.
However, I already have a large spreadsheet, and I want to include your worksheets in it. I copied all the worksheets and the Module 1, but I can't get it to work. What else do I need to transfer / update please?
Hello there, is it possible to use this pivot to produce a calendar style chart, with returns multiple data per date, which on the calendar then, when clicked links to the data to provide more background information? What do you think? I'd love if I could pivot when i need. thanks, m
Hi, did you ever figure out how to do this? I would love to find a way...
This is amazing and will work well for my calendar project! My question is, how can I expand the calendar to fit a standard sheet of paper?
Wow - this is so creative. I'm taking the basic idea and building a reservation calendar.
Question: How do you get the month and year slicers on a different page than the pivot tables? I'd like to have my final calendar on a separate page from the pivot.
[…] http://chandoo.org/wp/2012/09/12/interactive-pivot-calendar/ […]
This is perfect...is there a way to add notes/tasks to the individual days?
Excel will not let me insert blank rows between lines in the pivot table. I am use Excel 2013 - is there a pivot table tools command that must be used?
I can create the pivot table calender with a year spinner & month slicer but I do not see how to display the the attendance information that I have in the original data table.
Thank you for the wonderful post and I am sorry for my lack of understanding...
Excellent!
Please show me how to add an alternative calendar to this calendar, Chinese or lunar calendar (and by lunar I don't mean phases of the moon), like what they still use in Asia
Thanks
Christopher
[…] Wow – what do you think of the interactive calendar chart demo above? To achieve this impressive effect you must have Excel 2010 because it utilises slicers, which is a feature introduced in Excel 2010. Find out how this treasure was created on Chandoo’s page. […]
Hello my name is Maurice, excuse me for my further request, but believe me, without your help priprio not know how to solve this problem.
So: always using a chart positioned on an excel sheet I wanted to match each square (series) to a single cell, to create a perpetual calendar.
Now everything works fine; except that for a fact, and it is this: In the calendar as you well know some numbers may not be apparent until certain conditions, which I solved by writing this "= O code (AA5 = DATE ( $ H $ 1; MONTH ($ AD $ 12) +1; 1)) and the game and done.
Now I would like to achieve the same thing using the Chart; How can I do to make this happen! let me also just a practical example so that I can understand all the rest then I'll do; Thanks Greetings from A.Maurizio
Link Program : Link: https://app.box.com/s/lhqva3eji0xcf2nmk8lxyki88tt1mi5t
Great info, thanks for sharing
Hi,
I love your calendar however I am modifying it for use in displaying employee performance metrics on a day by day basis.
I see where tblChosen and tblDates are named ranges however I cannot find them anywhere.
Are they assigned to specific cells because I cannot tell.
I see both of them in the Name Manager, which tells me what they refer to but does not give a value or cell location.
@Mike
With the Names in the Name Manager
Simply select the name
Then click in the Refers To: box at the Bottom
Excel will take you to where the Named Range is referring to
[…] Wow – what do you think of the interactive calendar chart demo above? To achieve this impressive effect you must have Excel 2010 because it utilises slicers, which is a feature introduced in Excel 2010. Find out how this treasure was created on Chandoo’s page. […]
Hi, Chandoo
This Pivot Calendar is an excellent idea. I’ve done one for myself using your guidelines. I just need something I’m not being able to do. I need that when I open the file the default date is set to today’s date. I know how to do it with conditional formatting. But I think I’ll need some vba coding for this. Can you please help me with this. Thanks in advance