I've been annoyed by Compact Form in Pivot Tables since Excel 2007. I am sure you have things in Excel that annoy you as well. Now, you can communicate those annoyances directly to the Excel team using Excel.UserVoice.com.
Transcript of the video:
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Learn Excel from MrExcel podcast, episode 1959 - Vote for Excel Changes With UserVoice!
Hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast, I'm Bill Jelen.
Well today I have a rant about Pivot tables in Excel.
I LOVE Pivot tables, but ever since Excel 2007, every time that I create a Pivot table, I'm very annoyed that when I choose multiple fields in the row area.
See, they all show up there in column A. And this is hideous!
I mean it's great, if I'm going to be doing this live at a staff meeting, or something like that, but the fact is, I am going to reuse this data later, and having three different fields in column A, is the worst, thing, ever.
So, ever since 2008, I have been lobbying the Excel team to say: "Look, look, I understand you love your Compact form here, but there's a lot of us who need Tabular form, and in fact, what we really need is Flat, which is the Excel PowerPivot way of creating a Pivot table.
Every time I create a Pivot table, I come in here and go back to Tabular form, and then frankly, I go to Repeat All Item Labels.
This gets me a data set where each field is in its own column, Region in A, Product in B, Customer in C!
That's the way it should be, and if you agree with me, I feel your pain.
But up until this point, all we've been able to do is just gripe about it.
Once a year I'm out in Redmond, and I talked to the Excel team, I say: "You know, we really need to have, under Excel Options, a way to say what the default for future Pivot tables is!" And they say "Yeah, yeah, we'll get to it sometime." Well I was just out at Redmond, and I just went through that process again, and I learned about this amazing, amazing thing.
So right now, look up in the upper-right hand corner of the screen, that little "i", that's called a card, click there, and you'll get to this blog post about UserVoice!
And then, right here in the third paragraph, is a link that you can hardly see, where I posted MY idea at UserVoice!
And what is UserVoice?
Excel.UserVoice.com is not a Microsoft site.
This is a site, though, that the Excel team is paying attention to.
The idea is: you have an idea for Excel, you come out to Excel for Windows (Desktop Application), type up your idea, and then you start to tell your friends and co-workers and other people that use Excel about your idea, and they can vote!
Here's the rule: If Microsoft sees an idea with 20 votes, they're going to personally respond!
Alright, so here we go, I actually have a response from the Excel team for this, and if you get MANY more than 20 votes, then they're actually going to consider using it.
Alright now, when the Excel project manager told me about this: "Well, you need 20 votes" I just laughed, I said: "Everyone wants this, I'm not going to get you 20 votes, I'm going to get you a 1000 votes!" Alright, so hey, here's the thing: if you agree with me that this should be a setting that should change, I want you to come out to excel.uservoice.com , and vote for my idea.
But you know, the problem is, even if Microsoft does this in a year, then it's up to your IT department, to decide to install the new version, so you're three years out.
A beautiful thing is, Debra Dalgleish of Contextures.com, has a beautiful add-in called Pivot Power Premium!
Pivot Power Premium lets you do this right now!
Pivot Power Premium lets you change this setting right now, for all future Pivot tables, and gets rid of all sorts of other annoyances.
I love this add-in from Debra.
So now, rather than just griping about the idea, we have two possibilities, first possibility is go vote to lobby the Excel team, second possibility is just go give Debra 30$ or 59$, depending on which version, and have the problem fixed right now.
But whether you buy Debra's add-in or not, I really want to convince the Excel team that this one setting should be changed, and so, I'm not above bribing you to vote.
Alright, if you go out to excel.uservoice.com , you vote, send me a screenshot showing that you voted, the address is right there on the screen, I'm going to do two things for you.
First thing I'm going to do is, I'm going to send you a link where you can download, my full-color 2-page laminated Excel Pivot tables tip card, with all of my favorite Pivot table tricks and tips, right now, for free.
There you go, buying your vote.
Also if you do this in the next week before the 15th, I'll send you a great coupon code, a secret coupon code from Debra, where you can save 20% on her Power Pivot Premium, but the really, really important thing here, whether you are annoyed by this Pivot table setting, or anything else in Excel, is to come out to excel.uservoice.com , where you can communicate directly with the people who create Excel, lobby, support, get votes for your idea, and they're going to respond.
To learn more about Pivot tables, click that "i", in the top-right hand corner right now, and you'll go to my complete playlist about Pivot tables on YouTube!
Oh hey, I want to thank you for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel!
Learn Excel from MrExcel podcast, episode 1959 - Vote for Excel Changes With UserVoice!
Hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast, I'm Bill Jelen.
Well today I have a rant about Pivot tables in Excel.
I LOVE Pivot tables, but ever since Excel 2007, every time that I create a Pivot table, I'm very annoyed that when I choose multiple fields in the row area.
See, they all show up there in column A. And this is hideous!
I mean it's great, if I'm going to be doing this live at a staff meeting, or something like that, but the fact is, I am going to reuse this data later, and having three different fields in column A, is the worst, thing, ever.
So, ever since 2008, I have been lobbying the Excel team to say: "Look, look, I understand you love your Compact form here, but there's a lot of us who need Tabular form, and in fact, what we really need is Flat, which is the Excel PowerPivot way of creating a Pivot table.
Every time I create a Pivot table, I come in here and go back to Tabular form, and then frankly, I go to Repeat All Item Labels.
This gets me a data set where each field is in its own column, Region in A, Product in B, Customer in C!
That's the way it should be, and if you agree with me, I feel your pain.
But up until this point, all we've been able to do is just gripe about it.
Once a year I'm out in Redmond, and I talked to the Excel team, I say: "You know, we really need to have, under Excel Options, a way to say what the default for future Pivot tables is!" And they say "Yeah, yeah, we'll get to it sometime." Well I was just out at Redmond, and I just went through that process again, and I learned about this amazing, amazing thing.
So right now, look up in the upper-right hand corner of the screen, that little "i", that's called a card, click there, and you'll get to this blog post about UserVoice!
And then, right here in the third paragraph, is a link that you can hardly see, where I posted MY idea at UserVoice!
And what is UserVoice?
Excel.UserVoice.com is not a Microsoft site.
This is a site, though, that the Excel team is paying attention to.
The idea is: you have an idea for Excel, you come out to Excel for Windows (Desktop Application), type up your idea, and then you start to tell your friends and co-workers and other people that use Excel about your idea, and they can vote!
Here's the rule: If Microsoft sees an idea with 20 votes, they're going to personally respond!
Alright, so here we go, I actually have a response from the Excel team for this, and if you get MANY more than 20 votes, then they're actually going to consider using it.
Alright now, when the Excel project manager told me about this: "Well, you need 20 votes" I just laughed, I said: "Everyone wants this, I'm not going to get you 20 votes, I'm going to get you a 1000 votes!" Alright, so hey, here's the thing: if you agree with me that this should be a setting that should change, I want you to come out to excel.uservoice.com , and vote for my idea.
But you know, the problem is, even if Microsoft does this in a year, then it's up to your IT department, to decide to install the new version, so you're three years out.
A beautiful thing is, Debra Dalgleish of Contextures.com, has a beautiful add-in called Pivot Power Premium!
Pivot Power Premium lets you do this right now!
Pivot Power Premium lets you change this setting right now, for all future Pivot tables, and gets rid of all sorts of other annoyances.
I love this add-in from Debra.
So now, rather than just griping about the idea, we have two possibilities, first possibility is go vote to lobby the Excel team, second possibility is just go give Debra 30$ or 59$, depending on which version, and have the problem fixed right now.
But whether you buy Debra's add-in or not, I really want to convince the Excel team that this one setting should be changed, and so, I'm not above bribing you to vote.
Alright, if you go out to excel.uservoice.com , you vote, send me a screenshot showing that you voted, the address is right there on the screen, I'm going to do two things for you.
First thing I'm going to do is, I'm going to send you a link where you can download, my full-color 2-page laminated Excel Pivot tables tip card, with all of my favorite Pivot table tricks and tips, right now, for free.
There you go, buying your vote.
Also if you do this in the next week before the 15th, I'll send you a great coupon code, a secret coupon code from Debra, where you can save 20% on her Power Pivot Premium, but the really, really important thing here, whether you are annoyed by this Pivot table setting, or anything else in Excel, is to come out to excel.uservoice.com , where you can communicate directly with the people who create Excel, lobby, support, get votes for your idea, and they're going to respond.
To learn more about Pivot tables, click that "i", in the top-right hand corner right now, and you'll go to my complete playlist about Pivot tables on YouTube!
Oh hey, I want to thank you for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel!
