Do you know you can group dates in pivot tables to show the report by week, month or quarter? I have learned this trick while doing analysis on a pivot table today. In this online lesson on pivot tables, I will teach you how to group dates in pivot tables to analyze the data by month, week, quarter or hour of day.
Let us say you have a sales transaction database like this:
To show “Total units sold by salesperson in each month” in pivot table
- First make a pivot table [video tutorial] with Sales person as column header, Transaction date as row header and “total units” as pivot values.
- Now select any transaction date, right click and select “Group”
- In the group dialog box, select “Months” for group by option. Press ok.
- Presto! your data is grouped by month. No more than 3 seconds and you are ready analyze the data by month and find trends.
I have made a small screen-cast to show how this can be done. See it here:
Special cases for grouping dates in pivot tables
While the above example is simple, there are various things you can do when you are grouping data in pivot reports. Here are some special cases and how to get the grouping in pivot tables.
Group by Quarter & Month:
To group the pivot tables by Quarter and Month,
- Select “group” option.
- Select both “month” and “quarter” in the “group by” option, Click ok.
Group by Week:
To group the pivot table dates by week,
- Select “group” option
- Select “day” in the “group by” option. When you do this, the “number of days” box will be enabled. Enter the number of days as “7” to group your pivot report by week.
Group by Hour of the day:
Assuming your data has dates along with the actual transaction time, you might want to analyze the sales by hour of day, to find out say “if one product is selling more than other during certain hours”.
To group the pivot table dates by hour of the day:
- Select “group” option
- Select “hour” in the “group by” option.
Collapsing & Expanding Pivot Table Groups:
When you group pivot reports by more than one “group by” you will see a little icon with + or – sign to expand or collapse the groups. Using this feature, you can easily deep dive in to a particular group to do further analysis. For eg. you can collapse all quarters and just expand Q2 to understand why the sales went up.
Another useful feature of these collapse / expand buttons in pivot tables is that, when you make a pivot chart, the collapsed groups are collapsed in the pivot chart too. And it is dynamic, ie, if you expand a group in the pivot table, the chart gets updated and shows more details.
Tell us how you use the group / un-group feature in pivot tables?
I am finding numerous possibilities with the group / un-group feature of pivot tables. I will learn new things and share them with you as we go along. Meanwhile, share your tips, experience and ideas using comments. I would love to learn from you.
Related Articles on Pivot Tables and Dates:
I suggest reading beginners guide to excel pivot tables, working with dates & times in excel.
23 Responses to “Learn Top 10 Excel Features”
What it looks like if excel without formula?? 🙂
It would be not excel it would just be fancy tables in which you could just use power point. (Chandoo) would Access be an alternative?
Awesome piece of work!!!
Great article.
Chandoo - my biggest interest in the article was the awesome word-graphic at the top - where did you go to get it done into a shape?
@Rich.. thank you. I used http://www.tagxedo.com/ to generate this word cloud. I took all the comments in the original post, pasted them in tagxedo website and set up the shape etc.
Awesome Chandoo.. You need always needs coffee to start up with. BTW , how did u created the Heart Shaped picture filled with High Repetitive text in it .. Please put it on your Next blog ...
Chandoo, good article. I’ve added a link to it from Connexion – our collection of the most useful and interesting spreadsheet-related articles from the web. See http://www.i-nth.com/resources/connexion
Hi,
Just one small question. Where the hell have been I in the past for not discovering this website sooner?
I've lost a job interview recently where even though I had the subject knowledge, I was not upto their mark in Excel.
Thank you for all the free tips, guidance and for creating this forum environment.
[PS: I've just been through the site for the 1st time, and have signed up for the newsletter. You can expect pretty stupid questions from me soon]
Hy Chandoo, you always inspire me with to explore something new in excel. This data structure table is only for excel 2007 or compatible to 2010. I recently installed latest excel version 2013 in my System and experience problems regarding operating according to previous one. I'm waiting your article relates to that excel version.
Thanks
Awesome article Mr. Chandoo and that is a awesome heart shaped pic you created. Great tips as well.
[...] Learn Top 10 Excel Features | Chandoo.org – Learn Microsoft Excel Online. [...]
Chandoo is awesome..
Thanks, i got better, And i always get 90.50 in my grade card but now i get 96.50 i improved because of the tutorials you gave, Thank You Very Much Chandoo Guy.
Hi chandoo, i am intersted in seeing the video or step by step done procedure of analysing the comments and presenting in the data percentage steps. I think this one would be first step in finding out how generally happens data calculation. Thank you.
As well i would like to know how to get that black shape art of your face which i see in chandoo. I am interested in making it for me.
Nice to see the features considered by Excel users to be most useful. It might be a good idea to also analyze StackOverflow Excel questions to see what keywords appear most often.
Here are my top 10 Excel Features (for advanced users):
http://www.analystcave.com/excel-10-top-excel-features/
Thanks a ton for this it totally helped with my homework ????
Very good effort
Thank you for this. Lots of learning in the links you've provided for this septuagenarian.
Pls send me new post
Dude, your humor ? ?
Loved your work.
Hello Sir,
I am Sanjeev Khakre and i from Indore City, India , I am your big follower and i have watch your videos and learnt a lots of excel trick or function and many more . thanks so much for all of your excellent support.
Your excel knowledge is real awesome.
Thanks
Sanjeev
Your work is excellent but pls willing to know more details about the features of microsoft excel
Chandoo Would Access be a better alternative than VB?