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Pivot tables

jazzkid

jazzkid

Member
Hi I have just started learning about pivot tables and dashboards. I want to create both for data collected for a hospital to make the information better and more meaningful for the managers. I am having problems with getting the pivot tables to be as user friendly as I would like.

The data is about falls in patients - which is a major issue and one which causes major injury.

I dont seem to be getting the idea about which items to put in "rows" "columns" and values. I have put links to two documents. One is raw data, the other is the same sheet with a pivot table created. Any comments/suggestions/assistance would be greatly appreciated. I would also like to know if there is an easy/quick way for the values to be just the headings rather than "sum of...". The two documents are at (http://bit.ly/pivottbl) and (http://bit.ly/dashpivot) Thanks in advance.
 
This really isn't a pivot table problem.


_Primarily_, you'll use pivot tables to create meaningful cross tabs out of columns/rows data. In this case, it looks like your data is already in a cross tab, making having a pivot table a bit pointless.


You've got a couple of options:


1. Start tracking your data in columns/rows. It could be a simple incident log:


[Date] [Patient Age] [Patient Age] [Injury] [Some other field that's relevant]


This logged format will work in a pivot table.


2. If your data is already crosstabbed when you get it, perhaps you don't need a pivot table. Some relatively simple use of form controls, tables, etc. could give your users a pretty good presentation.
 
Thanks Dan. :)


I wondered if maybe I was making the job too hard.


I will redo this weekend and repost the tables to perhaps get feedback about if I have understood you correctly. I will include other data I have. Currently have one page with about 6 different tables in it. It just evolved with no real sense of how to use if for information for managers.
 
I have done a table with the information updated.

I am still struggling with how I get the information to be suitable for the managers. For instance, we want to know and be easily able to identify how many people fall on which day of their admission, how many on a Monday, how many in which ward, etc. I have this info in the table, but it isn't quite like I want it. I have shared it at (http://bit.ly/pivotrial3). Think this is more like Dan was suggesting. Any comments/suggestions gratefully received.
 
I think you should track your events on something like the sheet "One Sheet No Sep Tables".


Think the table through. I strongly recommend that you be liberal the details you include. It's always better to have too much data than it is to have too little.


Once you have that table together, you'll put it in a dynamic range, cut out a couple of pivot tables that show you want you want to see, and come up with some visualisation if you want.
 
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