Grouping fields in a PivotTable:

In this tip, I will explain how to group fields in a PivotTable.
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As an example, I will group the dates listed in this table.

The first thing we do is to insert a PivotTable.
So select the “Insert” tab in the “Ribbon” and click the “PivotTable” button.

In the PivotTable, we place the “Date” field in the “Row Labels” area and the “Total” field in the “Values” area.
The intention is to see the totals for the months and years.

Click the “Group” button in the “Ribbon” and select “Field Grouping” from the pop-up menu.
Or, a little faster way is to right-click a cell in the the “Row labels” area and select “Group” from the pop-up menu.

As you noticed, in the window that appears, the start date and end date are already filled in automatically by Excel (1) and the consolidated “Months” (2) are already selected.

Select “Years” also, in the window.
This will then not only the group the data based on the months but, it will also group it based on the year.
As a result, I get the sum totals of the months and the years.
Click the OK button.

All the totals for every month for of all the years, are neatly displayed.

If you want to see only the totals for the years, remove the checkmark for the “Date” field in the field list (1).
As you would have noticed, the “Years” field is automatically added to the field list (2).

The items are divided into columns:
The years are divided into months:

As you can see, dealing with pivot tables is very, very easy.
The only thing you need to know is what you want and how you want it displayed.

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