MrExcel.com - Your One Stop for Excel Tips & Solutions

Five Reasons to Use Power Pivot

March 07, 2023 - by

Five Reasons to Use Power Pivot

Problem: What is Power Pivot?

Strategy: Power Pivot is an amazing add-in for Excel. It is from Microsoft, but not from the Excel team. Power Pivot is from the SQL Server Analysis Services team. It is the greatest thing to hit Excel in 20 years.

Here are some reasons why you might consider using Power Pivot:

  • 1. Handle incredibly large data sets. I’ve seen 100 million rows, stored in the Excel workbook, without a problem.

  • 2. Import data from anywhere. Mash up data from Excel with data from Access, with data from Oracle.

  • 3. Create a pivot table from multiple worksheets without using VLOOKUP.

  • 4. New time-intelligence functions, including functions to handle fiscal years.

  • 5. New DAX functions for use in the grid and to replace calculated fields in the pivot table itself.

Problem: I have a version of Excel 2013 that is supposed to have Power Pivot, Power Map, Power Query, but they are not in the ribbon.

Strategy: Go to File, Options, Add-Ins. In the bottom of the dialog open the Manage dropdown and choose COM Add-ins. Click Go…

Add checkmarks to Power Pivot, Power Query, and/or Power Map.

This article is an excerpt from Power Excel With MrExcel

Title photo by Harshil Gudka on Unsplash