Blog Post

Excel Blog
3 MIN READ

Insert new Pivot Tables in Excel Online

Gregory Appel's avatar
Gregory Appel
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Mar 04, 2018

We are excited to announce that it is now possible to insert new Pivot Tables in Excel Online.

This was one of the top requests from our community and we have now rolled it out for all of our Office Online customers.

To learn more about Pivot Tables please use this overview article and our new Pivot Table Tutorial.

 

Before you get started

  • Your data should be organized in a tabular format. Ideally, you can use an Excel table (select the grid data and use Format as Table in the HOME tab). Tables are a great source of data for Pivot Tables because rows added to the “source” Table (later on) will be automatically included in the Pivot Table once you refresh it.
  • Data types in columns should be the same. For example, you shouldn't mix dates and text in the same column. Also, you’ll get the best results if the “source” data doesn’t have any blank rows or columns.

 

Select the “source” data you want to analyze

Just stand on the data. You don’t even have to select it all. If you do select a region, your selection will be respected.

 

Insert Pivot Table

Go to INSERT tab and press PivotTable:

 

The Create PivotTable dialog will open, and unless you selected a region, the whole Table/Range will automatically be selected as the data you want to analyze:

 

At this point, you can just click OK, and the new Pivot Table will get added to a new worksheet, just like in Excel Desktop application.

 

You also have the option to select an alternative location - press Existing Worksheet and then click the desired location:

 

Inserted it. Now what?

Once you insert a Pivot Table, you will see something like this on your screen:

As enigmatic as it might look, this actually means you are all set to go and do your analysis!

The yellow outline (above) is the placeholder for your new Pivot Table – that’s where you’ll see your newly formed Pivot Table, once you define it.

The green outline (above) is where you define how your new Pivot Table will look like.

 

To define the look of your new Pivot Table, all you need to do is drag PivotTable Fields into the four areas, as outlined below. And if you want to remove some field you dragged in, just drag it out and drop – it’ll go away.

 

Pitfalls & Limitations

Excel Online doesn’t support some of the less common capabilities of Excel desktop application, as outlined below:

 

 

All other constraints of the feature are the same as in Excel desktop application.

For example, you cannot add a pivot table to a location that is too close to an existing table:

 

If you try to do that, you’ll get the following error message:

 

Another common pitfall is to try and use a piece of data that isn’t suitable for pivoting.

If you try to create a Pivot Table on top of such invalid “source” data, you’ll get an error.

The “source” data is considered invalid in either one of these cases:

 

● Your “source” data points to an empty range (so, there is nothing to pivot)

               

● Your “source” data has a column without a header (so, there is no way to relate to it in a PivotTable)

 Your “source” data points to a single row (so, there is nothing to pivot)

 

 

Updated Mar 04, 2018
Version 9.0
  • Martin Kratky's avatar
    Martin Kratky
    Copper Contributor

    That's good news but when will these pivot tables in Excel online finally support refresh on SSAS Tabular sources? A refresh request -despite information that it is allegedly possible on MS communications- still returns errors. We went through 4 support cases with Microsoft and even your employees don't seem to be 100% sure if this should be supported and couldn't get it to work either.

  • Brian Reese's avatar
    Brian Reese
    Steel Contributor

    Fantastic work Excel Online team! This will help bridge the gap for those like myself that want to use the web applications as much as possible and try to limit use of the thick clients. Keep it up!

  • Ivana Risteska's avatar
    Ivana Risteska
    Copper Contributor

    Awesome guide! So, talking excel with my friends and classmates (I am attending an advanced Office course) I shared this article with them and we agreed that we find excel to be the hardest one of the whole office "bundle" by far. Maybe not so complex when you are supposed to create some simple tables with info and charts but when the time comes to shine with something more complex I can't only rely on my tutor because you can't figure out everything in one listening. Let's say you are trying to do this: https://view.ly/v/ZhSNq43MwrAK . The guy who uploaded that video calls it a magic trick. Let me be honest, it seemed harder than a magic trick to me lol but constant practice makes you feel like you are getting the hang of it and feel like a pro. And when it comes to formulas and stuff? Ugh, don't get me started I think that I'm gonna fail most of my exams lol. Please share some more articles like this one! Thanks!

  • Pavel Lacina's avatar
    Pavel Lacina
    Copper Contributor

    This is great!

    BUT me and my fieldforce users in multinational company would appreciate more to have this feature directly on their iPads within Excel for iOS.

    Thank you.

  • KINDLY HELP US FOR MAKE A FORMULA FOR TOTAL HOURS THAT FALL BETWEEN SPECIFIC TWO TIMES

    CONDITION IS "Night Hours COUNTED FROM 20:00 - 04:00 THEN"

    HOW TO CALCULATE NIGHT HOURS IF THERE IS AVAILABLE ONLY " TIME IN" AND "TIME OUT " 

    EXAMPLE :

    TIME IN = 19:30 

    TIME OUT = 06:00

    NIGHT HOURS = ? ( FORMULA )

  • Philippe_VR's avatar
    Philippe_VR
    Copper Contributor

    I am looking assistance for Pivot Table grouping.   Sales grouping is in USD.  However when trying to use accounting format it does not show up.  Any way around?  

  • Erasmus's avatar
    Erasmus
    Copper Contributor

    It's 2022 now, and Excel online still doesn't support analyze data for multiple tables? I am looking for that feature. 

  • George_Fulco's avatar
    George_Fulco
    Copper Contributor

    What am I doing wrong?  Still don’t see pivot table option from Excel Online when using a spreadsheet created on my iPad.  Does my original spreadsheet have to be created online?

     

     

    Thank you.