A Complete Guide to PivotTables: A Visual Approach

If you are an excel or access user who does not make use just yet of pivot tables and charts, this book is for you. It explains at a very basic level how to use pivot tables. Why is a matter of what you do and your math and imagination abilities. I recommend it for people who do not use them, because many people are still unfamiliar with the power of these tools and they truly are powerful and time savers. Power users purchase this book expecting too much for their level, I believe, so stick to it if you don't even know what they are or do not use them at all for your data analysis.

If you just have a basic understanding of Excel, like I do, this is an excellent guide. Very understandable for non-technical types. Gives you step-by-step instructions. If you are an expert programmer, this book is probably not for you. I thought the screen shots and demo data was particularly helpful in understanding the basics of how to use Pivot tables. Of course, like anything else, you have to apply your own practical experience to it.

Spreadsheets and SQL databases are represented as tables. That is, as rectangular grids of data. But in many ways, the common spreadsheet view is quite limited, though powerful within its context. Spreadsheet functions are often tied to specific cells as inputs. Then, interchanging two rows might cause the result to be different. A SQL view is more robust. Typically, you use data in a given column. The rows from which you take that data are selected based on criteria met by values in another column or columns. Hence, swapping 2 rows in a SQL table usually has no effect on an answer. In essence, this is what PivotTables offer. Cornell doesn't seem to describe it in such a fashion. He writes for a spreadsheet user who has no acquaintance with SQL. Certainly, this is a larger audience. But if you have a SQL background, then the idea behind PivotTables is easy to grasp. Most of the book deals with the mechanics of how to use PivotTables. Necessary, but secondary, once you realise what's going on.

I was hoping to hear more about why I should use pivot tables and under what circumstances they are useful. There is some material on that to be sure but in general the book focuses on how to use the Pivot Table features of Excel. The advanced material is on how to script Pivot Tables using VB. The text is well written. The book is a little screenshot heavy, but you would expect that from this type of book. It's a good book, and it will come in handy for heavy users of this feature. But for those looking for more on data analysis techniques you will probably be disappointed.

Like most people, I've only scratched the surface (well, maybe I gouged it a bit) of the capabilities of the Microsoft Office products. There are more features buried in them than most users ever discover. I use Microsoft Excel frequently in my job to analyze all sorts of data. When they came out with PivotTables, I dabbled in them and found several uses for them. However, documentation being what it is, I never really got to understand and utilize PivotTables to their full capabilities. Now, Apress has published A Complete Guide to PivotTables: A Visual Approach, by Paul Cornell. If you have any need to analyze data in Excel, you must read this book. I learned so much more about PivotTables after I read it that they are now actually useful, rather than just being something I would occasionally try out. Every chapter is packed with excellent information in an easy-to-follow format. A beginning to intermediate user can understand most of the book. Only the chapter on programming PivotTables requires intermediate to advanced knowledge to fully comprehend. Mr. Cornell takes a tutorial approach to explaining what PivotTables are, what they are capable of doing, and how you can apply them to your needs. Each chapter in A Complete Guide to PivotTables gives you an overview of the topic, a series of step-by-step examples, a "Try-It" section for more practice, and a summary of next steps. The book was written for Excel 2003, but most of the techniques can be applied to Excel 2002 and even Excel 2000. Chapter 1 gives you the basic overview of the PivotTable feature, what it's meant to do, and why you would use it. Chapter 2 starts the in-depth training of building basic PivotTables from Excel Lists, external data sources, other PivotTables, etc. Chapter 3 goes even deeper with information on advanced settings, filters, calculated fields, and other little gems that make analysis easier. These three chapters complete your basic training and lead to chapter 4 "Using PivotTables in the Real World." Paul proceeds to give not just one, but three examples of how PivotTables could be used to provide insight into company operations. Chapter 5 explains PivotCharts, which are simply a graphical representation of the information shown in a PivotTable. If you need to distill and analyze multidimensional, relational data, PivotTables are up to the task, as chapter 6 will demonstrate. The book describes how you use cube files, OLAP databases, and Microsoft Query to get the data and manipulate it. If you're a really capable programmer, comfortable with VBA, chapter 7 shows you how to work with PivotTable programmatically. There is an appendix that describes the differences between Excel 2000, Excel 2002, and Excel 2003. I was originally reviewing this book while using a computer with Excel 2000. I was delighted to find out that most of the information in the book works exactly as Paul described (albeit the screen shots didn't match). I did recheck some of the examp