I have come across numerous definitions of how Excel adds the field into a pivot table when selected, for example:
You can quickly add fields to your pivot table by using the check box next to the field name from the field list in the PivotTable Fields window. This can save time if you have a lot of fields to add instead of dragging and dropping each item. Fields containing text data will be added to the Rows section and fields containing numeric data will be added to the Values section when using the check box.
Source: howtoexcel.
However, here's a ten-second video showing that this is wrong -- at least in my case using Excel on Mac:
https://gyazo.com/f299b74d6f6fa4d74737e3f88362538c
Adding a float does a sum (makes sense), adding a text field does a count (??), adding an integer does a row aggregation (??), and adding a date does a count (??). Other than summing up a float, which would be common for financial purposes, I'm not sure what the rhyme or reason is for the defaults on everything else. Is there definitive documentation on what the default selection is by excel or more info on how this is done?
Related
Hello,
I want to set up a customized settings for the Excel pivot table and there is one little thing that ruins my attempt.
As you can see above, I set the default pivot table setting so that the table shows in compact form when I stack row fields.
What's annoying me here is that I have multiple measurements "count" and "Sum" and I want those to be grouped on rows rather than columns.
However, for some reason the pivot is in tabular form with the Sum Values rather than compact form and it defeats the whole purpose of not having to fix it every time.
I simply want the only thing that's different with the default that the pivots do not adjust automatically adjust size and show blanks for no data...
May I have some help?
Background
When the Pivot table seems to have a custom NumberFormat, the created fields will not carry it.
OffTopic: I guess it is normal, sometimes it displays 2, 3 or 5 digits among the same dataset, this is for convience for the user (thus making each cell in the column likely to have a number format different from each), I am not really able to change it, there is another ruling that basically formats cell by cell on the source data (I know it's not ideal, but it is what is convinent for the user and avoids overflooding the workbook with conditional formattings).
I would like to keep that number formatting on the value field when the user adds it to the PT by dragging that field to the Value field.
Problem
I have not found the right event to detect when the field is being added to the Pivot Table, I have tried all the events related to PivotTables in the worksheet, but even by reading to their inputs, I can see that such event may not exist.
Question
Is there an event that detects the field adding?
Further thoughts
I am not quite sure if it exists, my alternative would be to create a button where the user would get the format from the original source by clicking it by using the same code that I use to format cell by cell, but I would like to this be ran automatically when the Value add happens.
I have a problem when setting up an excel data validation list on an existing table :
There are existing records that were filled before the addition of data validation list, and new ones that are added using the dropdown list.
The problem I have is that excel doesn't recognize some values as the same if they were from the existing table (that was created without the data validation list) and if they are created with the dropdown list :
Example : In my dropdown list, I have Option A, but when filtering on the column, Excel shows Option A Option A (one for the old data, one for the new).
The only fix i found to this is to manually select values from dropdownlist for old data to be considered as the same (but it is not a viable solution as there are too much to change).
The issue was that there were 'false' spaces (ASCII 160) which is why there was a difference between two seemingly exact strings.
Ctrl+H on the colum and replace Alt +160 per " " solved this.
I have an Excel Workbook with two tabs - soon to be more.
The first tab is a large table containing a lot of data, the additional tabs (what I am calling view tabs) will essentially be selected data from the first tab - a sub-set of the table's columns - with various ordering.
To achieve this I am currently using a couple of pivot tables on the second tab - as I say this is the first of the 'view' tabs.
The pivot table does not need to do any summing or counting or anything like that so everything is just shown in tabular format.
The pivot table sorts alphabetically on the first column automatically - which is perfect for my needs.
I also have the following code inserted into this first view tab so that the pivot table is updated with the latest data from the 'Data' tab whenever the view tab is opened.
Private Sub Worksheet_Activate()
Me.PivotTables(1).RefreshTable
End Sub
When I edit a value in the data in the Data tab that is displayed in the first column of a pivot table in the view tab and then I view the view tab, the edited value is shown as updated in the view tab BUT it is moved to the bottom of the list - i.e. any edited value moves out of the alphabetical ordering in the first column and moves to the end of the list.
Editing data in any other column on the Data tab works fine.
I have an example xlsx demonstrating the problem, but it seems you can't attach files to SE posts (I hadn't noticed that in all these years!) - if anyone can point me to somewhere online that I could upload the example then I can link to it here.
As per #pnuts comment, this was simply a case of applying a sort to the first column of the pivot table via the filter menu.
Now whenever the pivoted source data changes, the data in the pivot table updates and the data order is preserved - exactly as required.
(It still seems odd, however, that Excel automatically sorts the data into the pivot table in the first instance - rather than listing in source data order - but does not maintain that ordering unless the pivot table data itself is explicitly sorted).
I have an excel spreadsheet full of customer data including a few single letter categorical variables.
For example: property type can be (I for investment, O for owner occupier, or R for renter). Is it possible to replace the single letter with a descriptive title in the rows on a PivotTable? I do not have the descriptive names anywhere in my spreadsheet and I would prefer not to add them.
you can give nicknames to the fields that you are checking which populate the pivot table.
If you go the pivot table data and right click you can change the value field settings to give a custom name to a row/series but I do not know about individual data points.
path: pivot table data => right click => select Field Settings => edit custom name.
It does not look like it modifies the raw data (before pivot table).
It adds the name to the chart as well. So make sure your chart looks okay.
to my knowledge this is the best tool for you to mess around with.
Hopefully this answers your question.
coming from experimenting on excel 2013.