Learning the PivotTable Lingo

Here is some PivotTable lingo that you need to know before you work with pivot tables.

• Item? An item label is a subcategory of a PivotTable field and is derived from unique entries in a database field or in a list column. Items appear as row or column labels or in the lists for page fields in a pivot table report.

• Row field? Row field labels have a row orientation in a pivot table report and are displayed as row labels. Appears in the ROW area of a pivot table report layout.

• Column field? Column field labels have a column orientation in a pivot table report and are displayed as column labels. Appears in the COLUMN area of a pivot table report layout.

• Data field? Data fields from a list or table contain summary data in a pivot table, such as numeric data (statistics, sales amounts, text). Summarized in the DATA area of a pivot table report layout.

• Page field? Page fields filter out the data for other items and display one page at a time in a pivot table report.

It's important to know what you want to do with your data in a PivotTable report. You need to know what you want to see. You might find it helpful to put what you want to learn in a series of questions. For example:

• How many new clients did we gain in January?

• Which magazine provided the highest number of new accounts for February?

• What's the average number of responses from the magazine advertisements?