We all know pivot table functionality is a powerful & useful feature. But it comes with some quirks. For example, we cant insert a blank row or column inside pivot tables.
So today let me share a few ideas on how you can insert a blank column.
But first let’s try inserting a column
Imagine you are looking at a pivot table like this.
And you want to insert a column or row. Go ahead and try it. Here is what happens.
- Excel gets mad thinking you are attempting anarchy and throws a stern, but very long & confusing warning message.
In fact the error message is so long, I can’t even fit it in one image on this blog. Here it goes, verbatim.
So how DO we insert a column in the pivot
The answer is simple.
Don’t
Don’t bother inserting the columns in actual pivot table. Instead, follow this approach.
- Select any cell in the pivot
- Press Ctrl+Shift+8 – This selects the entire pivot
- Copy it by pressing CTRL+C
- Go to a new worksheet
- Paste as references – ALT+CTRL+V and L
- Select any cells containing 0 and press DELETE key
- Now, go ahead and insert any number of columns & rows in this new worksheet
- When your pivot changes (either due to refresh or new data), the copy worksheet changes too
- Bonus: You can format the new worksheet cells any way you want. It just works.
Here is an example of what you can do.
But I want to insert a column in my pivot!!!
Okay, clearly you have a case of OCDIS (Obsessive Column Deletion / Insertion Syndrome).
Here is one way to technically insert a column inside the pivot table.
Before understanding the process, let’s pause and ask, “why do you want to insert a column?”
Here are few possible reasons.
- Cosmetic / formatting reasons. A blank column makes things easy to read
- To add commentary / notes / extra data
- To perform intermediate calculations on the data
If your answer is 1, the above approach (copying pivot and pasting as references) gives you most control over the layout and formatting. Go for it.
If your answer is 2, again above approach is still good.
If your answer is 3, you can use calculated item / fields is your best option.
If your answer is 3 & you are using Excel 2013 (or power pivot), you can use either Sets feature or MDX formulas to mimic blank rows. Unfortunately, I can’t explain this because squirrels know more MDX than me.
Let’s say you want to calculate certain percentage or similar…
Okay, so want to calculate North / West % in below pivot.
In this case, you can use calculated items feature of pivot table like this.
- Select any region name in the column labels are of pivot
- Go to Home > Insert > Calculated Item
- Give your calculated item a name like “North by West %”
- Write the formula =North / West
- Click ok
- This new column will added to your pivot, like this:
As you can see, it works fine until we hit the grand total row. There our North / West % should be 96%. Instead it reads 386%. Clearly a number calculated by my 6 year old son.
Why is the total wrong? Because, pivot table grand totals are a simple sum of all the above values. So Excel went ahead and added up the four percentages.
How to fix this? One simple options is to turn off the grand totals. Note that even row level grand totals are off as the % was added to actual values.
If you must see the grand totals, then your best bet is to use Power Pivot. It allows you to define formulas (using DAX) and create powerful pivot tables.
So no easy way to insert columns then?
It took us a few minutes to get here, but that is the answer. There is no simple work around to this problem. Instead, here is a 4 step process you should follow.
- Take a few deep breaths
- Insert your favorite expletive in this sentence “______ pivot tables” and shout it.
- Use Power Pivot
- If Power Pivot cant be used, copy the pivot as references and manipulate the layout as you wish.
Happy pivoting.
23 Responses to “Shift Calendar Template – FREE Download”
Hi Chandoo,
your recent postings include only Excel 2007 templates. Unfortunately the company I work at still runs Excel 2003. Is it possible to get your awesome files in other excel version as well?
Thanks so much for your great excel stuff!
Is it possible to do this for shifts with hours instead of days? To organise a three shift day?
Thanks in advance,
Stelios
In my organization there are 45 employees i need split then into three shifts ex:A shift:14,B shift:14,C shift:14 and week off:3 kindly help me on this.
@Masthan
You need to understand what rules your company has for the various shifts / roster combinations
Chandoo, I once did a shift control spreadsheet for my team. I put one person in each line, the columns were the days. I put a shift code in each cell indicating in which shift that person should work, or if the person were out that day. I have two codes for being out. One is for vacations and one is to compensate days worked in weekends. This way I was able to count how many persons I have in each shift, how many were on vacations and how many were out compensating (that's the term we use here) weekend worked hours.
Later I included the possibility of a person be in two lines one for normal hours other for overtime. This is mainly used for planning purposes. If you would like I can send you an example. The only problem of this spreadsheet is that we don't have a person view, only this consolidated view.
Hi George, I would like to have a copy of your spreadsheet if you can share it.
Thanks in advance, Chuck
Hi Chandoo,
Where is the code located ? is it VBA ? If so , how do you hide it ? Or it is .NET ?
Thx
@Idan
.
No VBA or code, it is all done with Mirrors.
Only Joking,
.
But there is no VBA or code,
It is all done with Named Formulas and Lookups.
Have alook at the cells in the calander area and Named Formulas in the Formulas, Name Manager Tab.
How can i calculate between two or more different workbooks? Please, reply me as early as possible.
@Anand
Open the workbooks you want to link to
Start a formula = and click and change between workbooks as required.
You can use the View, Switch window menu to change workbooks mid formula
The format for using workbooks is
=[Workbook.xlsm]Sheet1!$A$1
or
=SUM('[Book2.xls]Sheet1'!$A$1:$D$10)
etc
Hi Chandoo,
I am working with a call centre wherein i ned to update at the month end 20 to 30 employees login hours which are defict to track it at the month end is very difficult is there any template which can be made to track that why on a particular day a guy who needs to be on calls was why not on calls.
Thank you so much Chandoo. This is really helping me. As usual, you rock.
What's FortyTwoDays and Calendar in Name manager?
Both are unused and FortyTwoDays doesn't make any sense.
I have a SQL db that contains records of events scheduled/completed on a particular date. Can this method ous building a calendar be used to display those events on the respective day?
Positively awesome!
I'm attempting to help a friend create a schedule for adult classes - and of course its not"paid help". Here is the scenario:
20 classes, instructor, room#, student class size, start date, number of class days (need to subtract weekends)
class
instructor
room
students
start
#days
PATH
karen
201
21
01/01/13
11
BILLING
jane
401
15
01/12/13
13
MEDISOFT
mike
301
11
01/25/13
9
he'd like to see these classes show up in different colors within the same month's calendar chart. He can draw it, but I'd like to see it done automatically through data, and I just can't visualize it, but I KNOW this will work - can you help?
Jan 🙂
Dear chandoo,
Try many way to download still can't access. Any way we want to try out 3 shifts with 3 guys in a group .eg Group A Morn, Group B Night and Group C Rest. And every each group must work on sunday to take turns. In fact we are security teams so that's why sunday is required to work. Pls guide and show how to put in the working calendar. Thank you in advance.
I've been trying to copy and/or recreate this to use in a workbook I'm doing for the transportation department I'm working for. I need to have the calendar on the first sheet in my document (it has graph's from data on another sheet). I'm trying to use it to track (with the conditional formatting) accidents and injuries. I've redone the conditional formatting to do 4 different accident types (no injury, near miss, OSHA recordable injury and work loss injury), but when I enter the formula's you have in the calendar portion where it says "DateOfFirst-FirstWeekDay" I can't figure out how you did that. Are you able to help?
I would like to use Excel to solve the following problem for a community work. I want to create a Driver schedule for a given month from a pool of volunteers for a community service. Each of these volunteers can drive only on specific days in a week. I would like to populate the driving schedule for each weekday with primary, secondary and tertiary drivers in a random fashion so that I do not overburden one person. I would greatly any help you can provide.
Hi chandoo,
Thanks for your valuable effort for create this template and let me know how to add multiple employees in the the Roaster.
Hi Chandoo,
This article on shift roaster is very helpful. Could you please let me know how i can use the same for n number of resources who work 24/7, considering their leaves and holidays?
Thanks,
Savitha
Hi Chandoo,
This article on shift roaster is very helpful to all. Could you please let me know how i can use the same if I want to add for some more shifts, since the color is not getting change if I add more shifts like 4,5 etc.,
Thanks,
Murali
nice post
How can I change the date to 2017 under Shift Data worksheet.