Module 2 ended on a cliff-hanger. SUMIFS could answer "total sales in Mumbai for bags" — one question, one formula. But when a manager wants every city crossed with every product, that is fifty formulas, and by the time you have typed them all, the question has changed.
The pivot table is Excel's answer, and it is probably the single most job-worthy trick in this course. It takes thousands of rows and summarises them by dragging — no formulas at all. People who "know pivot tables" get shortlisted for office jobs on that phrase alone.
Meet the data
Rahul's shop from Module 2 has kept growing. His sales sheet now runs to 10,000 rows:
| A | B | C | D |
|---|
| 1 | Date | City | Product | Amount |
| 2 | 03-Mar | Mumbai | Pen | 150 |
| 3 | 05-Mar | Delhi | Bag | 850 |
| 4 | 09-Mar | Mumbai | Bag | 1700 |
The question of the day: "Total sales for each city, split by product."
Step zero: five seconds of preparation
Click anywhere in the data and press Ctrl+T — the Format as Table habit from Module 1. It is optional today, but it will save you real pain in the last lesson of this module, so make it automatic now. Give the table a name like Sales while you're at it.