Excel PivotTables: build, filter, group and verify totals
For office, finance and operations staff who already build simple PivotTables and now produce monthly or quarterly summaries other people rely on. Prerequisite: the course on summary tables and charts for office reports (or equivalent): you should already know the four field areas and how to check a grand total. This course goes further: grouping dates and amounts, choosing value field settings and Show Values As, filtering with report filters and slicers without misleading readers, refreshing safely, and proving individual cells against SUMIFS and COUNTIFS. Examples follow Microsoft's Excel documentation for Microsoft 365, Excel 2024 and Excel 2021; menus can differ slightly in older versions and on the web.
- Level
- Intermediate
- Length
- About 90 minutes
- Contents
- 5 lessons · final exam
- Status
- Published · updated 10 Oct 2026
Skills you'll practise
- Group date and number fields in a PivotTable into months, quarters or bands that answer a stated question
- Choose value field settings (Sum, Count, Average, Show Values As) that match the question being asked
- Filter a PivotTable with report filters and slicers and state the filter in the report
- Refresh a PivotTable after the source changes and confirm every source row is included
- Verify PivotTable figures against independent SUMIFS and COUNTIFS control totals and explain any difference
Course outline
- 1.Group date and number fields to answer the questionLesson · 15 min
- 2.Choose value field settings that match the questionLesson · 15 min
- 3.Filter with report filters and slicers, and say what is filteredLesson · 12 min
- 4.Refresh after source changes and confirm every row is includedLesson · 12 min
- 5.Verify PivotTable figures against SUMIFS and COUNTIFSLesson · 16 min
- 6.Excel PivotTables: build, filter, group and verify totals: knowledge checkKnowledge check · 15 questions
- 7.Excel PivotTables: build, filter, group and verify totals: practical exerciseKnowledge check · 1 question
- 8.Final exam10 questions · passing it completes the course, so people who already know the material can test out
Sources it draws on
The lessons and questions are written from these references, so learners can go back to the original.
- Microsoft Support: Create a PivotTable to analyze worksheet data
- Microsoft Support: Group or ungroup data in a PivotTable
- Microsoft Support: Use the Field List to arrange fields in a PivotTable
- Microsoft Support: Use slicers to filter data
- Microsoft Support: GETPIVOTDATA function
- Microsoft Support: SUMIFS function
- Microsoft Support: COUNTIFS function
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