Pivot Tables (Access Vs. Excel)

**andy_42** · 11-22-2006, 11:32 AM

I am attempting to create a pivot table in Excel but simply want to show the data (as opposed to showing any calculations on the data). Access allows me to do this but Excel forces the calculations in the data area. I don't want any sums/totals, just raw data.

Currencly I have position titles in the Row area, Districts in the Column area, and want details of the employees in the data area (such as name, department etc. which are based on the position title and district).

I am hoping that I am missing something small here because MS Access does exactly what I want. I would prefer this pivot table to be excel however with all of its sorting capabilities.

Can anyone offer any advice?

Thanks,

Andy

**Carim** · 11-22-2006, 11:40 AM

Hi Andy,

Understand your question ...

The only trick I am aware of is to have a "useless" count of something as data ...

HTH
Carim

**andy_42** · 11-22-2006, 11:59 AM

I'm not sure I follow.

Maybe Pivot tables are not the way to go with this concept... (I just can't figure out why Access would handle this different than Excel)

Essentially the data has to be sorted by Position title in the rows and again by district in the columns.

district1 district2 etc.
title1 name,dept name2, dept
name3,dept

title2 name4,dept

*Not all districts will have individuals with the given title.

Can excel do this and can you recommend a better approach?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Andy

**Carim** · 11-22-2006, 12:34 PM

Andy,

I am going to go through the history of pivot tables in XL ...
but in essence, in Access it was designed as a report whereas in XL it originated from a modular algorithm to allow for optimal recalculation of numbers ... hence its limitation when handling text ...

HTH
Carim