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The GETPIVOTDATA Function in Excel

The GETPIVOTDATA function in Excel is used to query and extract data from a PivotTable. It is essentially a PivotTable lookup formula.

This function can be extremely useful. When your PivotTable updates, it may grow or reduce in size, or the field items may change order – GETPIVOTDATA will continue to extract the correct data.

In this blog post, we will show why the GETPIVOTDATA function in Excel is useful with an example, but then show an example of when we do not want it, and how we can turn the feature off.

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5 Advanced PivotTable Techniques

PivotTables are one of the most useful tools in Excel. They allow you to easily summarise, examine and present a complex list of data.

This blog post explores 5 advanced PivotTable techniques.

  1. Grouping fields by month and year
  2. Calculating data as a percentage of the total
  3. Using Slicers
  4. Applying Conditional Formatting to PivotTable data
  5. Creating calculated fields

If you are new to PivotTables, check out our introduction to PivotTables tutorial.

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Count Unique Values in a PivotTable

When using a PivotTable to summarise a large list of data, you may need to count unique values in a PivotTable for a particular field.

For example, you may have a list of data like the one below and want to count the number of different customers in each country, or the number of different products that were sold in each country.

Data set to count unique values in a PivotTable

If you added the Customer Name field to the Values area of a PivotTable and summarised it with a Count you would get the result below.

Normal count calculation in a PivotTable

However, this is counting all of the transactions in each country. We need to count the unique customers making those transactions in each country.

From Excel 2013, there is a Distinct Count option in PivotTables making counting unique values a piece of cake. In earlier versions there is a workaround.

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Rank Fields in a PivotTable in Excel

In Excel, one of the PivotTable calculation options is to rank fields in a PivotTable.

Yes, you can sort the fields of a PivotTable to view items in order from largest to smallest, or smallest to largest depending on what you are trying to achieve. But you may wish to keep your list of products, customers, salespersons or whatever the field is your are ranking in alphabetical order.

Take the table below for instance. This PivotTable displays the number of sales and conversion rate for the members of a sales team.

PivotTable with sales and conversion rate

We would like to add a rank field to the PivotTable for both fields.

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