PivotTable Fundamentals - Microsoft Business Intelligence Tools for Excel Analysts - page 15

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PivotTable
Fundamentals

In This Chapter

Creating PivotTables

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Customizing PivotTable fields, formats, and functions

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Using slicers to filter data

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Understanding the internal Data Model

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As you gain an understanding of Microsoft's BI tools, it becomes clear that PivotTables are an integral
part of delivering business intelligence. Whether you're working with Power Pivot (Chapters 3 and 4),
Power View (Chapter 5), or even Power Map (Chapter 6), you eventually have to utilize some form of
PivotTable structure to make those tools deliver the final solution to your audience.

If you're new to PivotTables, this chapter gives you the fundamental understanding you need to con-
tinue exploring Microsoft's BI tool set. If you're already familiar with PivotTables, we recommend you
skim the “Understanding the Internal Data Model” section later in this chapter. The internal Data
Model is a feature introduced in Excel 2013 that essentially allows Power Pivot to run natively in Excel.

You can find the example file for this chapter on this topic's companion Web site at
www.wiley.com/go/bitools in the workbook named Chapter 2 Samples.xlsx .

On the Web

Introducing the PivotTable
A PivotTable is a tool that allows you to create an interactive view of your source data (commonly
referred to as a PivotTable report). A PivotTable can help transform endless rows and columns of
numbers into a meaningful presentation of data. You can easily create groupings of summary items:
For example, combine Northern Region totals with Western Region totals, filter that data using a
variety of views, and insert special formulas that perform new calculations.

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