Red Gig

When presented with a table of data that requires analysis, one common requirement is to calculate a running total or what some might call a cumulative sum of individual values. One application might be a table containing the amount of money spent across a number of transactions and there is a need to provide a running total to show the total spend across the data set. There are a couple of different methods to achieve this but the easiest way is to use the function =sum($B$2:B2) where column B contains the values that you wish to add in a running total. This gif (below) is the above function being added to a table containing values. I've used the keyboard shortcut F4 to set the cell reference to absolute so that when it fills down, the second part of the cell range increments with each row.

Pivot tables... I'm sure its a phrase that spreads the fear of the unknown in offices all over the country, it certainly did with me before I decided to bite the bullet and familiarize myself with this alien function in Excel. Pivot tables could be filed alongside other functions and applications that make you realize analysis that previously was too labour intensive to consider or even impossible is now available within a couple of clicks. Once you've cracked the basics of a pivot table, you'll be able to make decisions on massive data sets in minutes (or less). What is a pivot table? A pivot table is a tool that enables very large datasets to be manipulated and summarised very quickly and often without having to modify the original dataset. The pivot table exists alongside a data source and 'pulls' data from the source into the pivot table. It will not modify the original dataset in any way so it lends itself to trial and error learning. Pivot tables...