Here is a quick Pivot table tip. Let’s say your work at ACME inc. requires some fancy pants analysis of product sales. Imagine looking at below data & trying to find out the earliest & latest date for each product sale.
Of course, we can concoct a version of MINIFS & MAXIFS to answer the question. But why bother, when you can answer the question with just a few clicks.
Pivot table to find first & last date of product sales
First create a pivot from the raw data, with products in row labels & date in the values area. We get this.
Now, add date again to values area. Yes, you can do this. You can add same field multiple times to values area.
Right click on the first date values and choose Summarize Values By > Min.- Right click on the second date values and choose Summarize Values By > Max.
- Adjust value field settings to format the dates values as dates
- Viola, your report is ready.
If you have sales data by other attributes (like store name, region or category), you can set up slicers to create the same report at different levels.
More pivot table tricks to up your game…
Pivot tables are incredibly fun to use and amazingly handy. Check out below tuts to get started.
- Generate combinations of two lists with pivot tables
- Introduction to GETPIVOTDATA, talk to pivots and get what you want
- Matching credits & debits using pivot tables
- Sample your data with pivots
- Monthly values & % changes in one AWESOME pivot report
16 Responses
The power of Pivot Tables is underestimated by many. This is again a nice example how it can facilitate your life.
I also like the rank calculation, running totals or the possibility to filter on TOP X. Without mentioning calculated fields…
In your list I noticed matching credits and debits. Going to read that for sure!
Great Tip!! Sir
Thank You
Odd – I get a “We can’t summarize this field with Min because it’s not a supported calculation for Date data types.” error message.
Excel 2016 64bit.
Any ideas why I get this error?
many thanks!
Gino
@Gino, I’m also using Excel 2016 64 bit and it is working. Tested it when I saw your comment. Sounds like a source data issue. You can upload your file in the forums section. Makes it easier to analyze an issue. I’m sure one of the XL wiz’s will know the answer.
When you encounter this issue. You may need to convert “Date” column in your source data to “General” format. Then refresh PivotTable. You can then apply Min/Max and change Number Format for the field to Date type (not the source data).
Regards,
Thanks, Chihiro but the values already are dates. Still doesn’t work.
Cheers,
Gino
Can you share sample data. Email it to chandoo.d@gmail.com and I will test it. FYI, I use Excel 2016 64 bit, same as you and I can create the pivot alright.
FYI – Refer to this thread.
http://chandoo.org/forum/threads/min-max-of-date-in-pivot-table-doesnt-work.31912/#post-189541
As long as PivotTable is based on Table/data from sheet. It will not have this issue. However, when PivotTable is based on data model you need additional transformation step in PowerQuery or Fix mentioned in my previous post.
Thanks Chihiro, it worked!!
This is just what I need and will be so helpful, thanks Chandoo.
Awesome as usual!
I was just wondering how to get the first and last date for some donations and I remembered this tip. Saved me ages doing it using a more complicated approach!
Thanks – for this and all the tips,
Steve
Sirji
Your explanation is awesome…. very useful tip as usual ….
Regards
Venkat
Its awsome.
Very nicely explained sir.
If have a list with product name, dates of sale and price on that date of sale
Your tip allows me to find first and last date of sale
But I need price on the first date of sale
and price on the last date of sale…
How do I display those values in my pivot?
Hi Chandoo,
The raw data has a column whose values are of a datetime format. Ex: 1/8/20 2:56:22 PM. How to show only date values (mm/dd/yy format) in pivot table without adding new columns in raw data?
The question is about geting oldest and latest date of transaction.
I have a data sheet of my store purchas. I want to know latest and oldest date of each item with purchase rate also available. How to get Rates with Date?
Best regards.