P1.1: VLOOKUP and PivotTables in PowerPivot- Excel 2013

This post describes how to add data from other sheets using VLOOKUP, and make a PivotTable in Excel 2013 from the PivotTable workbook in Chapter 1 of the PowerPivot book.

VLOOKUP 

By opening the PivotTable workbook in Excel you can observe the relevant data for the fictional products of the example company, AdventureWorks. Figure 1 shows a segment of the data.

Fig. 1: AdventureWorks Sales data

The SalesManager column (B) was added to the Sales sheet using the VLOOKUP function (Figure 2) from the data in the SalesManagers sheet (Figure 3). 

=VLOOKUP([@ProductCategory], SalesManagers, 2)

The above VLOOKUP function matches the elements of the ProductCategory field of the current (Sales) sheet to first column of the SalesManager sheet, and retrieves the element of the corresponding second column (SalesManager) of the SalesManagers sheet. So, the Sales Manager of a specific product category shown on the SalesManagers sheet will be added to the respective category of product on the Sales sheet.

Fig. 2: VLOOKUP adding Sales Manager column in Sales sheet

Fig. 3: SalesManagers sheet

Although VLOOKUP is useful, it will be difficult and cumbersome if you want to analyze additional variables by adding them one by one. Relationships and Excel data models will be explored in the next post which will allow complete table analysis (not just one column at a time), and multi-table analysis (many columns of many tables).

PivotTables

This information is stored as an Excel table. To make a PivotTable, which allows analysis of many fields, and later can be linked together into a data model, Excel requires PowerPivot to be enabled in Excel 2013, and downloaded and installed for Excel 2010. (Click here on how to enable PowerPivot in Excel versions 2013 or 2010.) When PowerPivot is enabled, you should see the PowerPivot displayed in Excel's ribbon tab at the top right (Figure 4).

Fig. 4: PowerPivot tab in Excel 2013

To add a PivotTable of the AdventureWorks data, you click the Insert tab and then select the PivotTable button on the ribbon. An option window pops up, so you can select what data to analyze, and where to put the new PivotTable, as shown in Figure 5.

Fig. 5: PivotTable options

After you click OK, the blank PivotTable appears (Figure 6), ready for fields to be added to the report.

Fig. 6: Blank PivotTable with Fields on right side

From the right hand side in the PivotTable Fields, you can select the desired items to analyze and drag them to the appropriate quadrant in the bottom right corner, below the PivotTable Fields list. 

To produce a report regarding the total sales from 2005-2008 of categorized products sold under all sales managers, you select the ProductCategory, SalesManager, Year, and SalesAmount fields and drag them to the areas of rows for the first two, columns and values for the last two, as shown below in Figure 7.

Fig. 7: PivotTable with Sales of Products by Sales Managers by Year

There you have your PivotTable.

Thanks for reading,
Wayne