Some of you know that I run an online Excel training program – Excel School. This program has 24 hours of detailed, step-by-step, fun & very useful Excel training, all available online so that you can view & learn at your own pace.
Creating this program has been the best thing that happened in my life. This program has been received very well by Excel users all over the world. Since we launched in Jan 2010, More than 2,500 people have joined Excel School and have become awesome in Excel. Personally, I have learned so much more about Excel, teaching & running business by conducting this program in last 2 years.
You too can become awesome in Excel by joining us. Please click here.
What do our students say about Excel School?
I have asked our students & recognized Excel personalities to review & rate our program. You can read a few of those reviews here:
Here is what David says,
Chandoo brings out innovative ways of using Excel formulas. Some are functions I’ve never heard of, and some are formulas I thought I knew. Chandoo shows new ways to use the functions. The lessons are very informative and it is great to have the spreadsheet examples. Being able to download the lessons is great since I will no doubt forget a few things along the way.
Here is what Jesse says,
The downloadable materials are VERY helpful, but even better combined with the very excellent instruction–it’s all the best!
Reghunath says,
Fabulous teaching technique. Your ability to teach basics with simple language is truly appreciable.
Here is what Daniel Ferry from Excelhero.com says,
If you want to develop an amazingly strong skill set in Excel, Excel School is the right place. The online school is first rate, as are the downloadable workbooks and videos. It is obvious from the moment you first log on that Chandoo has worked endlessly for over a year now, designing the perfect curriculum and developing lessons, with the business user in mind.
Holiday Special – 20% Discount on Excel School Fees
This holidays, I want to spread some love. So we are giving 20% discount on course fees. Please use the discount code LETSGOEXCEL to claim it during checkout.
Note: this discount is valid until 5th of Jan, 2012 only. So hurry up.
How to Join Excel School?
Just like everything else here, we have a 5 step tutorial on this too 😉
- Visit Excel School page.
- Know about the course & what you get.
- Decide which option to go for & Click on the green sign-up button.
- Pay course fees (using your credit card, eCheck, PayPal accounts)
For our Indian students, we have credit, debit cards, net banking, check, bank transfer options. Click here. - Start learning & Become Awesome in Excel
That is all.
PS: If you want to learn Excel, but not pay, check out these 80 links. Tons of information, examples & awesome tricks to be learned.
PPS: Go ahead and enjoy the discount. Because you want to become awesome in Excel. Click here.
8 Responses to “Pivot Tables from large data-sets – 5 examples”
Do you have links to any sites that can provide free, large, test data sets. Both large in diversity and large in total number of rows.
Good question Ron. I suggest checking out kaggle.com, data.world or create your own with randbetween(). You can also get a complex business data-set from Microsoft Power BI website. It is contoso retail data.
Hi Chandoo,
I work with large data sets all the time (80-200MB files with 100Ks of rows and 20-40 columns) and I've taken a few steps to reduce the size (20-60MB) so they can better shared and work more quickly. These steps include: creating custom calculations in the pivot instead of having additional data columns, deleting the data tab and saving as an xlsb. I've even tried indexmatch instead of vlookup--although I'm not sure that saved much. Are there any other tricks to further reduce the file size? thanks, Steve
Hi Steve,
Good tips on how to reduce the file size and / or process time. Another thing I would definitely try is to use Data Model to load the data rather than keep it in the file. You would be,
1. connect to source data file thru Power Query
2. filter away any columns / rows that are not needed
3. load the data to model
4. make pivots from it
This would reduce the file size while providing all the answers you need.
Give it a try. See this video for some help - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u7bpysO3FQ
Normally when Excel processes data it utilizes all four cores on a processor. Is it true that Excel reduces to only using two cores When calculating tables? Same issue if there were two cores present, it would reduce to one in a table?
I ask because, I have personally noticed when i use tables the data is much slower than if I would have filtered it. I like tables for obvious reasons when working with datasets. Is this true.
John:
I don't know if it is true that Excel Table processing only uses 2 threads/cores, but it is entirely possible. The program has to be enabled to handle multiple parallel threads. Excel Lists/Tables were added long ago, at a time when 2 processes was a reasonable upper limit. And, it could be that there simply is no way to program table processing to use more than 2 threads at a time...
When I've got a large data set, I will set my Excel priority to High thru Task Manager to allow it to use more available processing. Never use RealTime priority or you're completely locked up until Excel finishes.
That is a good tip Jen...