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.
15 Responses to “Christmas Gift List – Set your budget and track gifts using Excel”
[...] Christmas Gift List – Set your budget and track gifts using Excel … [...]
I'm confused: if you spend $10, and your budget is $40, shouldn't the amount in the "Within Budget?" column stay black, since you didn't go over budget?
In other words, since we overspent on the electronic photo frame, shouldn't the $8 cell turn red?
@JP.. maybe Steven is encouraging consumerism... ?
I havent realized it earlier, but now I see it. If you unprotect the sheet, you can change the formula in Column I to =IF(G13=0;" ";F13-G13) from =IF(G13=0;" ";G13-F13), that should correct the behavior.
Thanks Chandoo. I thought of making a shopping list spreadsheet for Christmas, but this is neat so I think I'll use this instead.
Chandoo & Steven thanks for this spreadsheet. But for the sake of a person who has been staring at this megaformula in vain for the last 40 mins and not afraid to ask, would it be possible for you to walk us through the logic used here?
=SUM(SUMPRODUCT(SUBTOTAL(3,OFFSET($K$13:$K$62,ROW($K$13:$K$62)-MIN(ROW($K$13:$K$62)),0,1)),--($K$13:$K$62="-"))+SUMPRODUCT(SUBTOTAL(3,OFFSET($K$13:$K$62,ROW($K$13:$K$62)-MIN(ROW($K$13:$K$62)),0,1)),--($K$13:$K$62="0")))&" / "&SUBTOTAL(2,$G$13:$G$62)
Thanks Chandoo.. This is one of the best budget spreadsheets I've ever seen.. The Arrays are out of this world!! And it's FREE!!
Chandoo, can you tell us more about Steven? Does he have his own site?
JP, I think Chandoo changed it when he changed the currency formatting from £ to $, a negative figure is a good thing in this case. But don't change the formulas, the overbudget and under budget won't work properly if you do. Also Chandoo I think you've accidentally broke the conditional formatting for the alternating row colouring the formula is different to the version I sent you. As for the megaformula chrisham, it gave me a headache trying to get it all working, so I will let Chandoo talk you through it.
Hi,
In cells I6 and I7, I understand that subtotal together with offset function returns an array of ones after which, the sumproduct function gives the desired result.
But I’m not able to figure out the reason for using an array in I8 to return the most expensive gift.
Can’t the formula be just
“=VLOOKUP(SUBTOTAL(4,$G$13:$G$62),$G$13:$J$62,4,0)”
Savithri, Cell I8 needs the array, if the formula was “=VLOOKUP(SUBTOTAL(4,$G$13:$G$62),$G$13:$J$62,4,0)” it would find the highest price from the filtered range (i.e. highest actual in filtered range is $50) BUT then return the first person with that actual, not looking in just the filtered range (so first person on the list with a $50 actual.)
To see what I mean, change the formula, then change all the actuals to $50 then filter for baby, it lists the first name on the list.
But a good question 🙂
Thank you. I now realise that the array is used to get the ‘filtered range’ instead of the entire range, as table array for look up value.
[...] Download This Template [...]
this looks like an awesome excel sheet!! is there anyway i can get it emailed to me unprotected? for some reason, i am unable to download it 🙁 help!!
Hi I also can not download to a mac as the sheet is protected any help would be great
[...] to send her a pricey present. Rather, send a card with a picture of your child. Here’s a cool Excel sheet that will help you estimate your budget per person and let you track [...]
[...] husband and I pour/poor over the Christmas spreadsheet (yes, I do know how dorky that sounds, but we’re not the only ones!), figuring out who should give what to whom. We live at a distance from most of our family, so it [...]