Slicers are a visual way to filter data in a pivot table. With the Report Connections icon, you can have a slicer control multiple pivot tables on a dashboard—but only if all the pivot tables are from the same data set. Fortunately, there’s a separate way to control multiple pivot tables from different data sets, provided they have one field in common.
By Geetesh Bajaj, James Gordon. In Excel 2011 for mac, a PivotTable is a special kind of table that summarizes data from a table, data range, or database external to the workbook.If you’re PivotTable aficionado, you will be in seventh heaven with the new PivotTable capabilities in Office 2011 for Mac. Select Insert PivotTable. Under Choose the data that you want to analyze, select Select a table or range. In Table/Range, verify the cell range. Create a PivotChart Select a cell in your table. Select Insert PivotChart.
Microsoft Pivot Table 2016
For this example, you have a sales worksheet and a quality worksheet. You want to summarize both data sets in a dashboard. The goal is to have a slicer that can filter all the pivot tables by industry. Both data sets have a Sector field listing the industry sector.
Because this technique uses the Data Model, it only works in Windows versions of Excel. It won’t work on a Mac or Excel online.
Your first step is to create a new table that has a sorted, unique list of the industries found in either report. You might use an Advanced Filter for this, but an easy way is to copy the Sector column from both data sets to a new table and then use Data, Remove Duplicates to make sure each industry appears in the list just once.
Next, convert the original data sets and your new small table of sectors into a table. Select one cell in a data set and press Ctrl+T to create a table. Make sure My Table Has Headers is checked in the Create Table dialog box. Repeat for all three tables.
After creating a table, Excel uses names like Table1, Table2, and Table3. Using the box on the left side of the Table Design tab in the ribbon, rename the tables with descriptive names like Sales, Quality, and Sectors.
DEFINING RELATIONSHIPS
Click the Relationships icon on the Data tab to open the Manage Relationships dialog. Click the New button to create a relationship. The first relationship is from the Sales table to the Sectors table. Choose Sector as the related column in both tables.
Create a second relationship between the Quality table and the Sectors table.
To visualize the relationships, click the Manage Data Model icon on the Data tab, which opens the Power Pivot window. Click Diagram View in the top-right of the Home tab. You should see the two original tables with the Sectors table in the middle. Hover over either arrow to confirm that the tables are linked by the Sector field. Use File, Close to close the Power Pivot window and return to Excel.
BUILD PIVOT TABLES
Normally, to create a pivot table from the Sales data, you would select one cell in your Sales table first and choose Insert, PivotTable. Because you have defined relationships, however, the collection of tables and relationships comprise a Data Model. So go to a blank section of your dashboard and choose Insert, PivotTable. Excel will default to using the workbooks data model as the source.
Build any number of pivot tables. In the figure below, two pivot tables are based on the Sales data while the orange pivot table is based on Quality data.
CREATE THE SLICER
In order for the slicer to control pivot tables coming from both the Sales and Quality data, the slicer must be built based on the tiny Sectors table. Although you might normally create slicers using the Slicer icon on the PivotTable Analyze tab, you should switch to the Slicer icon on the Insert tab when using the Data Model.
From the Insert tab, choose Slicer. Excel opens the Existing Connections dialog box. Choose the second tab (called Data Model) and choose Tables In This Workbook Data Model. Click Open. Excel opens the Insert Slicers dialog. There’ll be two tabs: Active and All. Choose the tab for All and scroll down to the Sectors table. Be careful in this dialog. The Sector field is listed three times, but for the technique to work, you must select the Sector field from the Sectors table.
With the slicer selected, go to the Slicer tab in the ribbon. Choose Report Connections. Initially, the slicer isn’t connected to any pivot table. Choose each pivot table in the workbook. Click OK.
FORMAT THE SLICER
Slicers always start with a single column of items. While a slicer is selected, use the resize handles to change the shape. Use the Columns setting on the Slicer tab in the ribbon to show the slicer items in more columns.
When you select from the slicer, all the pivot table reports will be filtered by the slicer. For example, the figure below shows a report for only the Manufacturing sector.
To select multiple items from the slicer, turn on the Multi-Select feature using the icon with three checkmarks in the top of the slicer. Or, hold the Ctrl key while selecting additional items.
SF SAYS
To add more slicers, you’ll need a tiny joiner table and two relationships for each slicer.
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July 10, 2018 - by Bill Jelen
Can you build a pivot table with text in the values area? Susan from Melbourne Florida has a text field and wants to see the before and after of that text.
Traditionally, you can not move a text field in to the values area of a pivot table.
However, if you use the Data Model, you can write a new calculated field in the DAX language that will show text as the result.
- Make sure your data is Formatted as Table by choosing one cell in the data and pressing Ctrl + T. Make a note of the table name as shown on the Table Tools tab of the ribbon.
Insert, Pivot Table. Choose 'Add This Data to the Data Model' while creating the pivot table.
Drag fields to the Rows and Columns of the pivot table.
To add the text to the values area, you have to create a new special kind of calculated field called a Measure. Look at the top of the Pivot Table Fields list for the table name. Right-click the table name and choose Add Measure.
Note
If you do not have this option, then you did not choose Add This Data To The Data Model in step 2.
- Type a field name of ListOfCodes
- The formula is
=CONCATENATEX(Table1,Table1[Code],', ') - Leave the format as General
Click Check DAX Formula to make sure there are no typos
Click OK. The new measure will appear in the field list.
When you drag ListOfCodes to the Values area, you will see a list of codes for each cell in the values area.
Note
It is probably important to remove grand totals from this pivot table. Otherwise, the intersection of the Grand Total Row and Grand Total Column will list all of the codes in the table separated by columns. You can go to PivotTable Tools Design, Grand Totals, Off for Rows and Columns.
Amazingly, as you re-arrange the fields in Rows & Columns, the CONCATENATEX updates.
After using this method for a few weeks, I and others noticed that in some data sets, the concatenated values would contain duplicates, such as the Fig, Fig data shown in the East region above. Thanks to Rob Collie at PowerPivotPro.com, you can remove the duplicates by changing
=CONCATENATEX(Table1, Table1[Code], ”, “)
to
=CONCATENATEX(Values(Table1[Code]), Table1[Code], ', ')
The VALUES function returns a new table with the unique values found in a column.
Spreadsheets To Practice Pivot Tables
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Download Excel File
To download the excel file: pivot-table-with-text-in-values-area.xlsx
The DAX formula language allows many new calculations in a pivot table.
Excel Thought Of the Day
I've asked my Excel Master friends for their advice about Excel. Today's thought to ponder:
'Excel conquers all'