AGB 260: Agribusiness Data Literacy Sort, Filters, Pivot Tables, and Pivot Charts

Useful Chapters in the Textbook Regarding this Lecture

Sort On the Data ribbon, Excel has a few buttons that allow you to sort your data. The A to Z button sorts values from lowest to highest. The Z to A button sorts values from highest to lowest. These two buttons will sort based on the first column that is selected. If you would like to choose which column or columns you would like to sort, you can use the Sort button.

Filter On the Data ribbon, you have the ability to put on the “top” row of your data a filter button. The filter button allows you to sort your data or choose a subset of your data.

Pivot Tables A pivot table is a tool in Excel that can allow you to dynamically examine aspects of data very quickly. It is meant to take many rows and columns and make meaning out of them through its quick reporting capability. Pivot tables are very valuable because they allow you to quickly interact with your data.

Pivot Tables Cont. It allows you to look at the data in many different ways. Pivot tables are excellent at making cross tabulations and frequency tables. A drawback of a pivot table is that it does not automatically update when the data has changed.

Using Pivot Tables To use a pivot table, you want to highlight the data of interest in your worksheet. Once the data is highlighted, you can go to the Insert ribbon and click on the Pivot Table button. This will bring up a dialogue box that will confirm the data you want to work with and query you where you want to put the pivot table.

Main Components of a Pivot Table The fields (i.e., the columns from your data) The Rows You would drag your fields that you would like for your rows of the report here. The Columns You would drag your fields that you would like for your columns of the report here.

Main Components of a Pivot Table Cont. The Values You would drag your fields that you would like summarized for your report here. The Filters You would drag your fields that you would like to use as a filter here.

Pivot Table Specific Ribbons There are two ribbons that become available once you make a pivot table: Analyze Analyze gives you the ability to work with the data to see different aspects of it. Design Gives you the ability to format the data and how it is presented.

Groups The Analyze ribbon has a group tab that allows you to group your data by different categories. Groups are a special way of creating sub- categories of your data, e.g., summarize by month, years, etc. Once you have created a group, you can use the design tab to have the subtotals of the groups and the grand total for all the groupings in the pivot table.

In-Class Activity Please answer the following questions by exploring Lecture7Data in Lecture7Data.xlsx using a pivot table: What particular package sizes are used for each commodity? What is the average Low Price of each commodity?

In-Class Activity Cont. What is the average High Price of each commodity for January? Which products are coming from which countries/origins? Find the answer to each question above without using a pivot table. Hint, you may need to use Countifs() and Averageifs() to help you find your answer.