Excel Report - A Pivot Table Overview

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The reality is that every user who may have learned to make use of PTs have experienced a significant boost in their productivity. Not merely due to speed of making reports but by the quick insights you may get from large data sets.

Should you present an investigation of Sales by Product by Region and someone inquire, let's say... You'd say let me open the file and drag-and-drop it right now.

Listed below are the advantages of for you to use Pivot Tables
- Summarizes a huge number of rows within minutes.
- Changes design of report by just dragging and dropping.
- Formats your report quickly.
- Slices and dices your flat table by category.
- Allows you to add calculated columns.
- No formulas needed (at least you have calculated fields).
- Does not consume enough memory resources.
- Formats data ready to be analyzed.
- Allows you to hook up to external databases: OLAP, SQL server, Access, etc.

Allow me to share the negatives of for you to not use Pivot Tables
- Does not enable you to understand the supply of values reported like formulas (by pressing F2). Anyone really wants to see the place that the data originated from so they can easily confirm the formula.
- Doesn't offer flexibility to rearrange customized reports in cells.
- Won't refresh the outputs immediately in the event the backend list changes.
- Clutters the workbook in case there are many little Pivot Tables everywhere.
- Occupies space in the worksheet.
- Does not offer easiness of moving the outcomes over the worksheet.
- Doesn't allow to edit calculated fields directly inside the cells.
- Offers limited supported functions in calculated fields.

Conclusion. I am a fan of Pivot Tables however am hot for Lookup formulas too. If you're looking for what-ifs calculations by changing the inputs, data Lookup formulas has to be option. On the other hand, In case your input data is relatively static however you want to do what-if analysis with drill-down, then Pivot Tables are a fantastic choice. Unfortunately, the limited aggregate functions available in a Pivot Table, the impossibility to embed outputs in other formulas and the limited functions supported in the calculated field result in the utilization of formulas unavoidable.
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