Preparing Your Data

Some preparation is required to get a data list ready for a pivot table. The source data used for a pivot table needs to be organised as a list or converted to an Excel table (this is recommended although not compulsory).

A few steps to prepare the source data for a pivot table:

1. The data should have column headings in a single row on top.
2. Remove any temporary totals or summaries that are not part of the core data.
3. The data cannot have empty rows, so, delete any empty rows.
4. Ensure you do not have any extraneous data surrounding the list.
5. You may also want to convert the range to an Excel table (although it is not compulsory).

Once the data has been prepared, you can now create a pivot table.