Power Query (Get & Transform data in Excel 2016) is a must have tool, if you wrangle with data every day. Here is a quick introduction, in case you are new.
Let’s learn how to use Power Query to unpivot data.
Essentially, we are trying to go from left to right in this picture.
Doing something like this thru either formulas or VBA can be very complex. But Power Query can get you unpivoted data in just a few clicks. Sounds interesting? Read on.
Tutorial: Unpivot data using Power Query
Step 1: Set up your pivoted data as a table
If you want Power Query to work with data in Excel, it must be in table form. So select any cell in the pivoted data and press CTRL+T to turn it in to a table.
At this stage, we get this:
Step 2: Load table data in to Power Query
While keeping the selection inside pivot data, go to Power Query ribbon (or Get & Transform area of Excel 2016 data ribbon) and click on “from Table” button.
This will take your table data and load it in to a new query in Power Query. It looks like this:
Step 3: Get rid of grand totals
When unpivoting data, we don’t need the grand totals. To remove them,
- Select the grand total column
- Click on “Remove Columns” button in query editor (Power Query window)
- Click on “Remove Rows” button, select remove bottom rows option.
- Enter the number of rows as 1
At this stage, grand total column & row are gone. We end up with this:
Step 4: Fill down the missing region names
If your pivot table has null / blank values in the first column, you can fill them with values from above cells using the Fill option of query editor. Select the Region column and click on the Fill button from transform ribbon. See this demo:
Step 5: Remove sub-total rows by filtering them away
Click on the filter button next to region and filter away all the sub-total columns too. We don’t need them for unpivoting.
Step 6: Unpivot the data
Now that our data is in correct shape, let’s unpivot.
Select the last 3 columns and click on Unpivot columns button in Transform ribbon.
And we get the unpivoted data.
You can load this data to Excel or to your data model for further processing.
Download example Power Query workbook
Please click here to download the example workbook for this tutorial. To examine the query settings and power query steps,
- Open the workbook
- Go to Power Query ribbon (or Data ribbon in Excel 2016) and click on Workbook Queries Show Pane option.
- Right click on “Unpivot Data” query and choose edit
- This opens the query editor. You can examine the steps in the query steps pane to right.
Learn more about Power Query / Get & Transform data:
Power Query (or less intimidating Get & Transform data in Excel 2016) is an impressive technology to help you deal with common data problems easily. If you are an analyst who relies on Excel, learning Power Query is going to make you super productive. Check out below tutorials to get started with this amazing feature.
- Introduction to Power Query – podcast
- Importing web data using Power Query
- Recommended Power Query training from Ken & Miguel
How do you unpivot your data?
I used to write VBA programs to unpivot my data. But now that I have Power Query, I use it anytime I need unpivoting.
What about you? How do you unpivot your data? Please share your thoughts and tips in the comments section.
14 Responses to “Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability”
I think the virtue of pie charts is precisely that they are difficult to decode. In many contexts, you have to release information but you don't want the relationship between values to jump at your reader. That's when pie charts are most useful.
[...] link Leave a Reply [...]
Chandoo,
millions of ants cannot be mistaken.....There should be a reason why everybody continues using Pie charts, despite what gurus like you or Jon and others say.
one reason could be because we are just used to, so that's what we need to change, the "comfort zone"...
i absolutely agree, since I've been "converted", I just find out that bar charts are clearer, and nicer to the view...
Regards,
Martin
[...] says we can Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability. Such a pie has too many labels to fit into a tight space, so you need ro move the labels around [...]
Chandoo -
You ask "Can I use an alternative to pie chart?"
I answer in You Say “Pie”, I Say “Bar”.
This visualization was created because it was easy to print before computers. In this day and age, it should not exist.
I think the 100% Bar Chart is just as useless/unreadable as Pies - we should rename them something like Mama's Strudel Charts - how big a slice would you like, Dear?
My money's with Jon on this topic.
The primary function of any pie chart with more than 2 or 3 data points is to obfuscate. But maybe that is the main purpose, as @Jerome suggests...
@Jerome.. Good point. Also sometimes, there is just no relationship at all.
@Martin... Organized religion is finding it tough to get converts even after 2000+ years of struggle. Jon, Stephen, countless others (and me) are a small army, it would take atleast 5000 more years before pie charts vanish... patience and good to have you here 🙂
@Jon .. very well done sir, very well done.
good points every one...
I've got to throw my vote into Jon's camp (which is also Stephen Few's camp) -- bars just tend to work better. One observation about when we say "what people are used to." There are two distinct groups here (depending on the situation, a person can fall in either one): the person who *creates* the chart and the person who *consumes* the chart. Granted, the consumers are "used to" pie charts. But, it's not like a bar chart is something they would struggle to understand or that would require explanation (like sparklines and bullet graphs). Chart consumers are "used to" consuming whatever is put in front of them. Chart creators, on the other hand, may be "used to" creating pie charts, but that isn't an excuse for them to continue to do so -- many people are used to driving without a seatbelt, leaving lights on in their house needlessly, and forwarding not-all-that-funny anecdotes via email. That doesn't mean the practice shouldn't be discouraged!
[...] example that Chandoo used recently is counting uses of words. Clearly, there are other meanings of “bar” (take bar mitzvah or bar none, for [...]
[…] Grouping smaller slices in pie chart […]
Good article. Is it possible to do that with line charts?
Hi,
Is this available in excel 2013?