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excel-pivot-wizard skill

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This skill helps you build advanced Excel pivot tables with calculated fields, slicers, and dashboards for interactive data analysis.

npx playbooks add skill jst-well-dan/skill-box --skill excel-pivot-wizard

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Files (5)

SKILL.md

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---
name: excel-pivot-wizard
description: |
  Create advanced Excel pivot tables with calculated fields and slicers.
  Use when building data summaries or creating interactive dashboards.
  Trigger with phrases like 'excel pivot', 'create pivot table', 'data summary'.
allowed-tools: Read, Write, Edit, Grep, Glob, Bash(cmd:*)
version: 1.0.0
author: Jeremy Longshore <[email protected]>
license: MIT
---

# Excel Pivot Wizard

## Overview

Creates advanced pivot tables with calculated fields, slicers, and dynamic dashboards for data analysis and reporting.

## Prerequisites

- Excel or compatible spreadsheet software
- Tabular data with headers
- Clear understanding of analysis dimensions and measures

## Instructions

1. Verify source data is in tabular format with headers
2. Create pivot table from data range
3. Configure rows, columns, values, and filters
4. Add calculated fields for custom metrics
5. Insert slicers for interactive filtering
6. Format and style for presentation

## Output

- Configured pivot table with appropriate aggregations
- Calculated fields for derived metrics
- Interactive slicers for filtering
- Dashboard-ready formatting

## Error Handling

| Error | Cause | Solution |
|-------|-------|----------|
| Field not found | Changed source data | Refresh data connection |
| Calculated field error | Invalid formula | Check field names match exactly |
| Slicer not updating | Disconnected report | Reconnect slicer to pivot |

## Examples

**Example: Sales Dashboard**
Request: "Create a pivot summarizing sales by region and product"
Result: Pivot with region rows, product columns, revenue values, and date slicer

**Example: Financial Analysis**
Request: "Build a pivot showing monthly trends by cost center"
Result: Time-series pivot with calculated YoY growth fields

## Resources

- [Microsoft Pivot Table Guide](https://support.microsoft.com/)
- `{baseDir}/references/pivot-formulas.md` for calculated field syntax

Overview

This skill creates advanced Excel pivot tables with calculated fields, slicers, and dashboard-ready formatting. It helps turn tabular data into interactive summaries for analysis and reporting. Use it to automate pivot creation, add custom metrics, and build filters for exploration.

How this skill works

The skill inspects a tabular data range with headers and builds a pivot table mapping rows, columns, values, and filters to your requested dimensions. It can add calculated fields for derived metrics, insert slicers for interactive filtering, and apply formatting to make the result presentation-ready. It also validates field names and suggests fixes when source columns change.

When to use it

Summarizing large datasets by groups (e.g., sales by region and product)
Creating interactive dashboards with slicers for stakeholders
Adding custom metrics like growth rates or margins via calculated fields
Preparing presentation-ready reports with consistent formatting
Exploring time-series trends and comparing periods (monthly, quarterly)

Best practices

Ensure your source data is a clean table with consistent headers before running the skill
Decide which columns are dimensions (rows/columns) and which are measures (values) up front
Use explicit field names in calculated formulas and refresh if source names change
Limit slicers to the most useful fields to avoid clutter and slow performance
Validate calculated field formulas with a small sample before applying to full dataset

Example use cases

Create a sales dashboard: region as rows, product as columns, sum of revenue as values, and a date slicer
Build a financial summary: cost centers as rows, monthly totals as values, plus YoY growth calculated field
Generate an operations report: supplier and category breakdowns with interactive slicers for status and priority
Produce an executive summary pivot that is formatted and ready for export to PowerPoint

FAQ

What data format does the skill expect?

A tabular range with a single header row and consistent column types. Converting to an Excel table improves reliability.

What if a field is missing after changes to the source?

Refresh the data connection and update the pivot field mappings. The skill will report missing fields and suggest matching names.