We get data and make reports repeatedly. Often we forget to look at the same data in different ways. Due to this unbelievable amount of useful information is lost.
Act Now is a new idea I am trying. It asks you to do some activity and post the results.
Photo credit: Machine Project / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA
The first activity is to find at least one really useful information from data which you have been using routinely. How to do it? You can use one or more of the following ideas to discover more about your own data. For each activity relevant references are given.
- Try all options in Show Values As on items in data area
- Group text data in various ways in Pivot Table
- If there is any type of locational information in the data (city, country, lat / long) use Power Map (or Power View) to create a map based upon your data
- Use Quick Analysis feature of Excel to view the data in different ways
- Use Recommended Charts option to view different representations of the data
- Try using the same data but across a much longer period of time.
For example, if you regularly deal with monthly data, combine two years of data and analyze it. Usually we could not do this due to the 1 million row limitation of Excel sheets. Now, with Power Pivot Data Model, there is no such limit. - Use Sparklines to check the pattern of fluctuations
- Use Distinct Count instead of Count in Data Model based Pivot Tables (Power Pivot)
- Data contains many columns. Some of these columns have never been added to Pivot Tables. Add them and explore.
- Use Average or Standard Deviation instead of Sum
Post your result as comments. Let everyone learn from your experience. Enjoy!
