General question on Pivot Tables

I'm seeing bits and pieces about Pivot Tables for Excel 10 (which I am learning to use) but most of the information is on how to create them. I'm wondering if one would work from my needs or if I'm dreaming.

I need to track sales for about 25 different people selling their own craft items (consignment basis for a craft show) as well as keep track of Total Sales for show in general. If I enter all items sold in my main spreadsheet sheet could I use the Salesperson ID to copy those records to be to a pivot table (for each sales person)? The reason I would like to do this is to save the item numbers, descriptions and price for each item sold by sale person so that the next time one of those items are sold, the item would be available from a list and the description and price would automatically be filled in (preventing entry errors and saving time). If by chance there is a way, I'd very much appreciate any hints as to what function(s) etc I should search for to get more information on it.

Thanks!

Thanks so much for your quick reply! I intended to try to create a test page with a pivot table for one of the sales people and upload it for you to take a look at but a strange thing happened.. Suddenly my keyboard doesn't seem to be recognized by Excel! My first thought was that my wireless keyboard just needed batteries so I turned the place upside down and found some but it still didn't work. That's when I checked other applications like this one and determined that it's an Excel problem.. Or more likely, me clicking on something I shouldn't have while stumbling around trying to get familiar with the menus. I'll try shutting it down and if that doesn't work, I'll try rebooting my system and if that doesn't work, I'll hope that you recognize the problem and know what caused it. I KNOW....it's asking a lot but that's what I have for a last resort.<g> Hopefully, you'll hear back from me soon!

OK... Keyboard working again. I attempted a pivot table for one sales person and included information on a couple items and of course there were issues but see if there's enough there to get the idea. My goal would be to enter the ArtistID (Sales person) and the item and then hopefully check the pivot table for that ArtistID to see if that item has already been added. If yes, then return the item description and price for that item ID. If NOT, then once the description and price have been entered into the main worksheet, the itemID, description and price would be appended to the pivot table for that artist, ready for the next time. It would be great if I'm not delusional in thinking this could work.

Thanks so much for your efforts to help!

Hi,
See attached the pivot table according what I understand
I remake your data from sheet 1 to sheet Table :
- this table will automaticaly increase rows when adding data
The result in the sheet PT :
- select ArtistId and ItemId you want in the report filter
If the data exist you will get a result, if not all the fields will be empty
If you add data, refresh the pivot table and if this data is selected in the report, it will appear on all fields
Hope this helps
Best regards

1. Yes, but keep in that the ItemIDs must be unique to each artist. That's why I *attempted* a pivot table page for DW2 to show only items sold by DW2 and I want the Description and Price cells to pop in to the Description and Price cells on the main entry sheet.
2. I didn't quite understand but yes, if you meant that the data added to the main sheet which includes an itemID that was NOT already in the Lookup table for that ArtistID would automatically be appended to that lookup table (ready to be found the next time the ItemID is entered).

This was my first attempt at a pivot table and knowing where and what to enter for a source was just one of my unsolved "issues". I do plan to research them more but I wanted to find out if Pivot Tables would be the answer to performing those TWO tasks above.
By your comment "explain little more in spreadsheet only" I'm really just beginning to use Pivot Tables which is why I posted my question so basically I don't know enough to be able to explain my actions. Either I didn't know how to do it or I didn't know that I needed to. If you're convinced that Pivot Tables can handle those two tasks, I'll keep researching for more information on them.
Thanks Again!

Hi jpr73,
Thanks for taking the time to try to help. It's very possible that I did something wrong but I opened your Table and attempted to add a new transaction. After entering the Artist ID of "DW2" and the ItemID of "105px" the Description and Price fields remained blank. I added another transaction using the same Artist ID and a new ItemID, Description and Price and then checked PT to see if the new ItemID had been added to PT but I didn't see it. Also, it looks like PT pulls up Items for all ArtistIDs rather than only the ArtistID entered. I'm sorry, I probably wasn't clear enough as to my objective. Your effort is appreciated.

Hi imaquila,
I think you forget to refresh the pivot table after you add the data
You right the pivot table give all fields corresponding to the 2 reports filters
See attached a new version index_a with a filter of 10 first on Description field where I put 1 first
I test by adding data in Table sheet, it seem to work
Hope this helps
Best regards