Pivot Table Data Crunching

I am familiar with pivot tables, but bought this book to enable me to hit the ground running at my new job that requires pivot table skills. The book was very easy to follow, unlike many Excel how-to books, and there are plenty of screen shots to check your progress. I would recommend this book to those in similar situations to mine, but it does not seem appropriate for those who have consirable experience with pivot tables.

Do you use Pivot Tables in your work? Do you need to quantify the data returned by the Pivot Table? This is the best reference I have found on Pivot Tables. Though I have been using Excel for over 10 years (since version 2.0), I found useful examples my first day. I found out that I could do complex mathematical functions directly against the pivot data without building a second table or writing crazy macros.

On the Excel Developer Mailing list that I subscribe to there are many talented and generous people whom freely share their Excel knowledge and experience with others less skilled. Numerous of them are MVP's. Now when folks like Bob Umlas and Jon Peltier (whom are MVP Excel experts in their own rights) say a book is worth looking at, well, I definitely am keen to check it out. Bill "Mr. Excel" Jelen and Michael Alexander's book on getting the best out of Pivot tables was recommended to me by Jon Peltier (http://peltiertech.com/ ) and what a great piece of advice it turned out to be. Pivot table are one of Excel's most powerful features, and yet many users never harness the potential and power of this wonderful tool. I use pivot tables a lot and thought I had a good understanding of them, but this book has taken my productivity to a whole new level. Reading this book and understanding the concepts within has definitely been a "wow" experience for me. The style of writing is excellent and extensive screenshots and notes make it easy to follow the necessary processes to quickly and painless achieve the desired outcome. This book covers everything from the history of the Pivot table and data basics, right through to complex tasks involving calculated pivot fields, pivot charts and extracting data from external data sources such as an SQL database or OLAP cube. Importantly the authors also explain in great detail the potential for risk and data errors and how to minimise the chances of errors being generated. A worthwhile process for anyone using excel. Actually I loved the way the book was interesting and useful for all skill levels. Even if you had never created a pivot table before this book is very accessable and easy to follow. And for people like myself who are advanced Excel users, there is still an amazing amount of clever techniques to maximise the power of pivot tables. As a professional excel developer this book has definitely added value to work and (more importantly) to the end products I produce for my clients. A "wow! That is great!" client is a happy client.

I am an Excel MVP and pretty much know Excel inside out, yet I learned so many cool things from this wonderful book! I was often confused knowing the difference between calculated fields and calculated items, but this book really cleared that up for me. I can't think of any piece of using pivot tables which was either left out or glossed over. The book will make you a pivot table master! Highly recommended, whether you're a beginner or an Excel guru!

This book has been easy to follow and to the point. I thought I knew about pivot tables until I read this book. Apparently I did'nt know what I didn't know. I would reccommend this book to all Excel users.