Today, lets talk about indexing, a technique used to compare changes in values over time.
What is indexing?
Lets say you want to compare prices of Gold & Coffee over last few years. Gold price in 2011 (oct) is $1,655 per ounce. And now (sept 2012) it is $1,744. Like wise, Silver price in 2011 is $32.06 and in 2012 it is $33.61. How do we compare such diverse numbers?
Enter indexing.
First we need to calculate price of Gold and Silver in 2012 assuming their starting price is 100. This can be done with simple arithmetic.
We will get this:
Now, we can easily compare the prices. Looking at the indexed prices, we can conclude that both Gold & Silver prices have gone up by similar percentage (~5%).
When to use Indexing?
There are many good reasons to use indexed values. Some of the common reasons are,
- To compare values which are vastly apart – ex: price movements of gold, silver & coffee
- To understand growth (or non growth). Subtract 100 from any indexed value to know how much it has grown (or shrunk) compared to base value.
- To understand change with respect to a bench mark – ex: performance of a company with respect to stock market index.
For more detailed discussion on indexation & its applications, refer to this article by Paresh.
Indexed Chart Example – Commodity prices in last 5 years
Lets say you are a savvy commodity investor and want to understand how the prices of gold, silver, bananas and coffee have changed since 2007. Now, each of them have a different range of values and comparing all of them in same chart can be very confusing.
Let us index the values to 100 and then compare.
Step 1: Arrange your data.
Lets assume we have our data like this:
Step 2: First indexed value is 100 for all items
Step 3: Calculate next indexed value using simple formula.
See this illustration to understand how to calculate the indexed values.
Step 4: Make a line chart
Select the indexed values and create a line chart. And you are done!
Step 5: Format the chart
This is where you can unleash your creativity. Add labels, legend, format axis etc. Here is a version I came up with.
Download Indexed Chart Example
Click here to download example workbook & play with it. Poke the formulas & chart options to understand this better.
Do you use Indexed charts?
I use indexing technique often to compare various metrics in my own business. I also use these type of charts in various dashboards & client reports.
What about you? Do you use indexation as a technique to compare values? What other techniques you rely on? Please share using comments.
More charting techniques:
- Show both average & distribution of data in your charts
- Use multiple charts to give users a choice of analysis
- Analyze competition with scatter plots
- How to chart when you have lots of small & few very large values?
- Use small multiples (panel charts) to to compare lots of things
- More charting examples & charting principles
13 Responses to “Using pivot tables to find out non performing customers”
To avoid the helper column and the macro, I would transpose the data into the format shown above (Name, Year, Sales). Now I can show more than one year, I can summarize - I can do many more things with it. ASAP Utilities (http://www.asap-utilities.com) has a new experimental feature that can easily transpose the table into the correct format. Much easier in my opinion.
David
Of course with alternative data structure, we can easily setup a slicer based solution so that everything works like clockwork with even less work.
David, I was just about to post the same!
In Contextures site, I remember there's a post on how to do that. Clearly, the way data is layed out on the very beginning is critical to get the best results, and even you may thinkg the original layout is the best way, it is clearly not. And that kind of mistakes are the ones I love ! because it teaches and trains you to avoid them, and how to think on the data structure the next time.
Eventually, you get to that place when you "see" the structure on the moment the client tells you the request, and then, you realized you had an ephiphany, that glorious moment when data is no longer a mistery to you!!!
Rgds,
Chandoo,
If the goal is to see the list of customers who have not business from yearX, I would change the helper column formula to :
=IF(selYear="all",sum(C4:M4),sum(offset(C4:M4,,selyear-2002,1,columns(C4:M4)-selyear+2002)))This formula will sum the sales from Selected Year to 2012.
JMarc
If you are already using a helper column and the combox box runs a macro after it changes, why not just adjust the macro and filter the source data?
Regards
I gotta say, it seems like you are giving 10 answers to 10 questions when your client REALLY wants to know is: "What is the last year "this" customer row had a non-zero Sales QTY?... You're missing the forest for the trees...
Change the helper column to:
=IFERROR(INDEX(tblSales[[#Headers],[Customer name]:[Sales 2012]],0,MATCH(9.99999999999999E+307,tblSales[[#This Row],[Customer name]:[Sales 2012]],1)),"NO SALES")
And yes, since I'm matching off of them for value, I would change the headers to straight "2002" instead of "Sales 2002" but you sort the table on the helper column and then and there you can answer all of your questions.
Hi thanks for this. Just can't figure out how you get the combo box to control the pivot table. Can you please advise?
Cheers
@Kevin.. You are welcome. To insert a combo box, go to Developer ribbon > Insert > form controls > combo box.
For more on various form controls and how to use them, please read this: http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/03/30/form-controls/
Thanks Chandoo. But I know how to insert a combobox, I was more referring to how does in control the year in the pivot table? Or is this obvious? I note that if I select the Selected Year from the PivotTable Field List it says "the field has no itens" whereas this would normally allow you to change the year??
Thanks again
worked it out thanks...
when =data!Q2 changes it changes the value in column N:N and then when you do a refreshall the pivottable vlaues get updated
Still not sure why PivotTable Field List says “the field has no itens"?? I created my own pivot table and could not repeat that.
Hi, I put the sales data in range(F5:P19) and added a column D with the title 'Last sales in year'. After that, in column D for each customer, the simple formula
=2000+MATCH(1000000,E5:P5)
will provide the last year in which that particular customer had any sales, which can than easily be managed by autofilter.
Somewhat longer but perhaps a bit more solid (with the column titles in row 4):
=RIGHT(INDEX($F$4:$P$19,1,MATCH(1000000,F5:P5)),4)
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