Last time I posted something on a weekend was almost a few years ago. I am making a rare exception to share a joyous news with all of you.
We bought our first car yesterday. It is a Maruti Suzuki Alto (link). See the picture below:
Ever since we became parents in September last year, the question of car was in our minds. There is no way we can bike with all 4. But few things bothered me,
- We are against loans and we wanted to buy our car on all cash.
- Since I started my own company, spending cash on car seemed dangerous.
- We wanted a car that serves our basic needs, nothing too fancy.
That was back in September 2009. Since then, we have been saving for a car. Thanks to Excel School, Project Management Templates, By June 2nd week, we have accumulated enough buffer to purchase a car.
Then we looked around for models and makes. Suddenly everything became a blur. But thankfully we didn’t get lost. We choose a very basic model made by one of the largest car manufacturers in the world – Maruti Suzuki. The model, Alto, seemed to be everywhere on roads. We went ahead and booked it last week. We got it home yesterday.
Few more specifics about the car,
- It can seat 4 people comfortably, 5 not so.
- The gears are manual, but the steering is power.
- It has A/C and a music system.
- We paid INR 3,40,000 (roughly US $7,300) for it, all on cash, no loan 🙂
- And of course, I don’t know how to drive!!!
Thank you:
Thank you so much for supporting me and my business all along. You inspire me everyday to be a better person and better businessman.
And of course, I should thank Excel too. It has changed me life.
Now, go have a good weekend, I need to figure out how to change from neutral to first gear without having the engine die.
PS: People who have been reading me since 2008 would point that this is indeed not my first car. Well, it is sort of, the camry was bought in US and sold.
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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