When it comes to analyzing data it is often found that there are large sets of data that are hard to distinguish and compare at once. This can be made simple by inserting a pivot table into excel. A pivot table summarizes thousands of rows at a time in Excel workbook. Using your dataset, Excel creates a report of each table in which you can edit the layout. Below are a few examples of pivot tables being used to help interpret data.

This pivot table displays sample data of office supplies. In this table you can see it provides information on

• Order Date: first column shows when the order was placed,
• Region: geographical area in which the sale was made
• Rep: sales representative’s name
• Item: name of the item sold
• Units: number of units sold
• UnitCost: cost of one unit
• Total: total cost of the order – Units x UnitCost

I then used the data set in Excel where I inserted this into the pivot table option and received the following report.

Another example of a pivot table is one of the most simple ones you can do. I imported this table from the website https://exceljet.net/pivot-tables/pivot-table-basic-count

This data did not have that many rows because the repeating values were removed ahead of time. However, the color tables were not unique. Instead of having to count up each person for each color, you can create a pivot table that can tell you the same data in seconds. Pivot tables provide a flexible way to rearrange and filter data interactively.