Debra Dalgleish (http://www.contextures.com) is one of my Excel heroines and the pivot table guru. She is someone whose work I regularly reference in class.
I recently asked her to help me answer a question that regularly comes up in class when people ask about pivot tables – how do I know what to put where? She answers the question comprehensively in this blog entry.
http://blog.contextures.com/archives/2016/09/15/how-to-plan-a-pivot-table/
However three tiny additions I would put with this is the following:
- Generally put whatever it is you want to do the calculations on in the Value area
- I tend to put dates in the Row Labels section, group them and then move them around.
- Get started, put in something – you can always move and re-organise it if you don’t like it…
Enjoy!