Week 5: Clear - Pivot Tables in the Work Place

I really enjoyed the lectures provided this week on Excel. I work with Excel on a daily basis and think I am pretty familiar with the system. But it is always nice to see how someone else may work out problems. I deal with a customer some of you maybe familiar with..... Coca Cola, on a daily basis. My company ships there point of sales products and Coca Cola requires daily updates on the shipments along with monthly data. To provide this data I use Excel to create list, pivot tables and graphs. All of with are easy to read and understand. Unfortunately, my work has an older version of Excel, but I work with what I have!

Everyday I come in and begin by importing my data into an excel spreadsheet. I then follow by editing the data into formulas that are needed to receive the appropriate information. After the spreadsheet is complete, I create the pivot table. Once my pivot table is complete, I import the information into a graph. This may sound foreign now but I can do this at the snap of a finger. And you can too! It is much easier than you think. It all began by opening Excel and playing around. The help tab is very useful and I will even google things that I am having trouble. Often many other had the same problems and posted them online. Many functions are available through Excel. I have often sat at my desk for hours playing around with creating my own functions to solve issues. The online Office guide is also helpful to creating your own functions. You may even create the pivot table through the graph by simply selecting the graph option and dragging the data into into the correct graph areas. This will populate the information within the pivot table on a separate page. Here is an example of a pivot graph below:

You are able to edit these graphs into tables, charts, line or pie. If you work in a business environment, I would recommend becoming familiar with these tools. It will impress your boss when you need to provide data and you supply a chart along with it. VideoJug has a great video posted on "How to Impress Your Boss with a Pivot Table" with very usual steps. Just think of it as climbing the ladder to success!