03/26/2026
One of the most powerful features in Microsoft Excel is the Pivot Table. If you deal with large amounts of data, a pivot table can do much of your number-crunching for you! So many analytical functions that would require you to learn extra formulae in Excel are taken care of by this tool.
How do you create one? Select the data you want to analyze and in the INSERT tab, select Pivot Table. You'll get a "Create Pivot Table" pop-up window in which you can confirm your data range and also select whether you want to create your pivot table in a new or existing worksheet. I prefer to create my tables in new tabs, so I generally always select "New Worksheet". Click "Ok" and Excel will create a blank pivot table for you.
In your newly-created worksheet, you'll see the "Field List" pane on the right-hand side of your screen. In this pane, you can drag and drop your data fields into any of the four boxes labelled "Filter", "Rows", "Columns", or "Values". Each of these fields is fairly intuitive, but the best way to figure out what each one does is to play around with them and trying dragging different fields into each box and experimenting with the data layout.
Let's say you want to see the Total Revenue by Month for different Product Lines. Drag "Product Line" into "Rows". Drag "Month" into "Columns". Drag "Revenue" into "Values". Voila!
