Best Practices and Recommendations
1. Best Practices and Recommendations
We've seen many of the great features of pivot tables, but here are a few things to keep in mind when starting out.2. Best practices for selecting pivot table fields
There are many ways to create a pivot table, and they are all valid, but the most common method is to use descriptive fields for the rows and columns, and to use measurements for the values. What does this mean? Descriptive fields are non-numerical categories. This would be a category such as Industry, or Year, or Product Type. These are fields that you would want to use to filter and organize your data, but you won’t necessarily be performing any mathematical calculations on these fields. Measurements are the fields that you do want to perform mathematical calculations on. These are the fields that you would want to add together, such as Revenue, total inches of Rainfall, and so on. There are certainly cases where this dynamic can be flipped, but this will give you a good starting point.3. When not to use a pivot table
Another thing to keep in mind is that a pivot table may not always be the best solution. Pivot tables are great for summarizing large quantities of data. They can quickly perform basic calculations on large amounts of data, and they allow for great interactivity. However, they are not always the best solution. If your dataset is very small, sometimes it may be easier to just use filters or subtotals. You can learn more about these functions in other DataCamp Spreadsheets courses. Also, if you need to have strict control over formatting and layout, the pivot table may be a bit restrictive. Overall, pivot tables are an extremely powerful tool that you will find lots of use for. After these exercises, you will be on your way to mastering the pivot table!4. Let's practice!
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