Pivot tables can be used to quickly summarise large amounts of information, and they’re a great way to compare different data sets. Here are some common uses of pivot tables:

• Data Analysis

The pivot table is a powerful feature of Excel, which allows you to analyze your data and make sense of it. For example, if you have sales data and want to know how many sales were made by each employee concerning the product they sold, you can use the pivot table in excel.

• Data Exploration

You can also look at different scenarios using Pivot Tables. For example, if one month has high sales while another has low sales, you can compare which items sell better than others by creating multiple reports based on this information.

• Data Summarisation

You may need to summarise large amounts of data into a single table. A pivot table can make it easy for management or other people involved in decision-making processes, such as marketing agencies. For example, they may be interested in seeing how certain factors affect their business performance over time using visual representations like bar charts, pie charts, etc. This lets them view their information together rather than doing calculations.

How to Use a Pivot Table in Excel?

• Organize your Data

It can be overwhelming to understand where to start if you’re dealing with a large amount of data. It is important to organize your data beforehand to make the most of your pivot table. It can also be helpful to think through what you’re trying to learn from your data. 

• Is there a question that you want to be answered? 
• What do you hope to find out by looking at the data? 

By answering these questions, you can determine the most important fields and where they should go in your pivot table.

• Insert the Pivot Table

Choose the data you want to analyze. Next, click the pivot table icon in the ribbon and then select OK when prompted to select a cell location for your new pivot table

Select a cell outside of any existing pivot tables on your worksheet, and then choose Insert > PivotTable > Choose Location on Current Sheet (or press Ctrl+Alt+M). Choose one cell in each range that you want to include in your pivot table:

• Setup the Pivot Table Field

Once you have your data sorted, the next step is to set up your pivot table. To do so:

• Select the field you want as rows from the “Data” tab.
• Click on the “Insert” menu and then select PivotTable in it.
• In the Create PivotTable dialog box, click on the “Fields…” button under Choose fields for your report section in the first row of this dialog box to open the Field List window. Select any two columns from the list available there and drag them into Row Labels and Values lists, respectively, in the left side pane of the Field List window.
• Sort the Table

To sort the table:

• Click the pivot table field you want to sort.
• Click the dropdown arrow at the right of your chosen field name and select Sort.
• Select either Ascending or Descending from the first dropdown menu that appears in order to determine whether you want your results arranged from A to Z (or lowest value to highest) or vice versa.
• Choose whether to sort by one column or multiple columns by selecting either “Single Column” or “Multiple Columns” in a subsequent dropdown menu.
• Finally, choose which column(s) you’d like to be sorted by clicking OK
• Filter the Data

You can use filters to show or hide certain data. Let’s say you want to see all the sales that came in on Tuesday. When you start a pivot table, it will have all the days of the week represented as columns and categories. To filter for one day, click on the dropdown arrow next to “Tuesday” in your Pivot Table Field List and select “Show Values As” from the dropdown menu that appears.

This will remove any rows from the report that don’t contain sales from Tuesday (or whatever day you’ve chosen).

• Edit the Data Values

You can edit the data values with a pivot table by clicking on the dropdown menu on your pivot table and choosing the pivot table field. For this, select data values from this menu, and you’ll see a list of fields you have selected for your report.

Click on one of these items, and Excel will expand your pivot table to show all of those fields instead of just one at a time.