Remember that the wizard presents you with a new worksheet area that contains everything you need to lay out a PivotTable view of your data: the PivotTable Field List that you'll drag fields from, and a layout area. Your job is to drag selected fields from the list onto the four choices you have on the layout area: row, column, data, or page areas.
Start by asking yourself what you need to know, which tells you which fields to use. Your manager wants the answer to how much each salesperson has sold, so you would use the Salesperson and Order Amount fields. As to where to put the fields:
- The Row Fields area displays data vertically, one item per row. That's a good place to drag the Salesperson field, to see each salesperson's name on its own row.
- The Column Fields area displays data horizontally, one item in each column. If, for example, you dragged the Salesperson field here instead of to the row area, each salesperson's name would be in its own column. Since we've already decided to use the row area, we can just leave this area empty; you don't have to use all the layout areas.
- The Page Fields area groups and displays data as if the data were on separate pages, so that you can see only those parts of the data you want to see at one time. For example, by dragging the Country field here, you could choose whether to see the data for UK only, as if it were on a page by itself. There's more about page fields in the practice session at the end of the lesson.
- The Data Items area is where data is shown and summarized, which is most often numerical data. For example, this would be the place to drag the Order Amount field, because you want to see individual sums and an overall total.
Note If you're not a fan of the drag-and-drop method, you can use menu commands to move fields around. You'll find out how in the practice session.
