Excel homework - Analyze wholesale sales data

Excel homework
Have a working MS Excel installed on Monday, 02/27/2023
Download Excel spreadsheet with data
Follow the instructions in the file Week 6 - Decision Making Using Excel 2016 Tutorial 1.pdf
and complete the tasks
Question list, data file, and the tutorial for each of the homework tasks are attached in this
module.
Please, follow the assignment and submit the completed homework file by Sunday, 03/05,
11:59 PM EST.
Requirements: please follow the instructions
MIS303 Introduction to Business Information Systems Excel Exercise -- 1 -1 -Download
“MonthlyTrade.xlsx" from Blackboard. This is an actual dataset based on the Monthly
Wholesale Trade Report from U.S. Census Bureau (https://www.census.gov/wholesale/),
showing the monthly sales of Merchant Wholesalers in the United States from 2012 to 2016.
Complete the following tasks (this is not an assignment, but rather an exercise for you to
learn and practice your Excel skills. You don’t need to submit your file but are strongly
recommended to follow me to complete the tasks as you will use the skills to solve and
submit an assignment). T0. Create copies of the worksheet and rename worksheets. T1.
(Freeze and unfreeze panes) Create a copy of the Wholesaler worksheet and name it T1. In
the T1 worksheet, freeze the top row. T2. (Formatting) Create a copy of the T1 worksheet
and name it T2. In the T2 worksheet, change the format in sales cell to be in the accounting
format. T2 is a nice format for the data, and we will use it as the starting point for the
remaining tasks. T3. (Conditional Formatting) Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and name
it T3. In the T3 worksheet, highlight the sales records between $15,000 and $30,000 (in
millions of dollars) by “Light Red Fill with Dark Red Text.” In addition, highlight the sales
less than $6,000 (in millions of dollars) by “Green Fill with Dark Green Text.” T4.
(Conditional Formatting) Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and name it T4. In the T4
worksheet, add data bars on the Sales column. T5. (Sorting) Create a copy of the T2
worksheet and name it T5. In the T5 worksheet, sort the data: (1) by Wholesaler Industry in
the ascending order; (2) by Sales in the descending order; (3) by Wholesaler Industry in the
ascending order first and then within each Wholesaler Industry by Sales in the descending
order (a combination of both). T6. (AutoFilter) Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and name
it T6. In the T6 worksheet, without deleting any record, show the sales records only for the
Electrical & Electronic Goods industry in year 2016. T7. (AutoFilter) Create a copy of the T2

worksheet and name it T7. In the T7 worksheet, without deleting any record, show the sales
records only for Grocery and Related Products industry between $45,000 and $50,000 and
sort the records by sales in the descending order. T8. (Chart) Create a copy of the T2
worksheet and name it T8. In the T8 worksheet, find answer to this business question: how
does each durable goods industry perform compared to others in May 2016? We can create
a column chart that shows the sales figure of each durable goods industry in May 2016. Add
a proper title of the chart and proper descriptions of the horizontal and vertical axes. Hint:
you need to use AutoFilter to only show relevant sales records first while hiding other
records.
MIS303 Introduction to Business Information Systems Excel Exercise -- 1 - 2 - T9. (Chart)
Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and name it T9. In the T9 worksheet, find answer to this
business question: how does the monthly sales trend of Beer, Wine, & Distilled Alcoholic
Beverages industry in year 2015 differ from that in year 2016? We can create two line
charts showing the monthly sales trend in year 2015 and in year 2016 respectively within
the same graph so that we can directly compare them. The months name should appear on
the horizontal axis. Add a proper title and proper descriptions of the horizontal and vertical
axes. Hint: you need to use AutoFilter to only show relevant sales records first while hiding
other records. T10. (Subtotal) Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and name it T10. In the
T10 worksheet, answer this business question: what is the total sales volume for each
industry in each year? We need to calculate the annual total sales for each industry using
the Subtotal command. Before we do Subtotal, we need to sort the data correctly based on
what we try to achieve. T11. (PivotTable) Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and name it
T11. In the T11 worksheet, find answer to this business question: what is the total sales
volume for each Wholesaler Category (i.e., Durable Goods and Nondurable Goods) in each
year? Within each Wholesaler Category, what is the total sales volume for each industry in
each year? We can create a PivotTable to show this. Display the sales volume in the
accounting format. We can also add a filter to the PivotTable so that we can decide which
months are included or excluded in the calculation of total sales (By doing this, we can
easily change from yearly total sales to quarterly total sales). T12. (PivotChart) Create a
copy of the T2 worksheet and name it T12. In the T12 worksheet, find answer to this
business question: how is the total sales distributed among Durable Goods and Nondurable
Goods in September? We can build a PivotTable that shows the total sales volume in
Durable Goods and Nondurable Goods (Row) in September (Column). Then, we can create a
pie chart that shows how the total sales amount is distributed across the two categories.
Add a proper title. T13. (Function/Formula) Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and name it
T13. In the T13 worksheet, find answer to this business question: how many monthly sales
figures are less than $10,000 (in millions of dollars) and how many monthly sales figures
reach at least $10,000 (in millions of dollars)? We can create a column to the right and
display “Yes” if sales figure is less than $10,000 and “No” otherwise, using the IF function.
Then we use the COUNTIF function to count how many sales figures are less than $10,000
and how many sales figures reach at least $10,000. T14. (Function/Formula) Create a copy
of the T2 worksheet and name it T14. In the T14 worksheet, find answer to these business
questions: (1) what is the total, average, max, and min of the monthly sales figures across all

industries and across all time periods? (2) How much does each individual sales figure
contribute to the total sales figure?
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 1 of 51
Decision Making Using Excel 2016 – I Introduction When your business has a large
business-related dataset, it is important to organize, format, present, and summarize the
data in meaningful ways so that you can extract and focus on various informational aspects
of the data to address your business questions and needs. One commonly used tool to
achieve this is Microsoft Excel 2016. In this tutorial, you will learn the basic skills of
Microsoft Excel 2016, including: • Basic operations: copy/rename/delete a worksheet •
Data formatting: formatting / conditional formatting • Data sorting: sorting by one or more
fields • Data filtering: AutoFilter • Data visualization: Chart • Data summarization: Subtotal
/ PivotTable / PivotChart • Data generation: Formula and Function In this tutorial, we will
use an Excel workbook titled MonthlyTrade.xlsx to demonstrate all the skills. It is an actual
dataset based on the Monthly Trade Report from U.S. Census Bureau. Assume that you have
been hired by U.S. Census Bureau as an intern to summarize and analyze the dataset. In this
workbook, the worksheet named WholeSaler stores the monthly sales of Merchant
Wholesalers in the United States from 2012-2016. In a business dataset like this, we usually
organize data that are related to certain topic or a business operation in a worksheet. For
example, monthly sales related to another type of industry (such as Education) can be saved
in another worksheet. Each worksheet typically consists of columns and rows. Each column
(also called field) represents a certain characteristic or aspect of the topic of the data.
Generally, the column label is denoted at the top. For example, the second column labelled
as Wholesaler Industry explains that this column shows the specific industry a merchant
wholesaler belongs to. Each row in a worksheet represents a record of the topic. For
example, each row is a sales record for a particular wholesaler industry in a particular year
and month. Each column has a column header marked by A, B, C, D, etc. We can refer to a
column by its column header. For example, column B refers to the Wholesaler Industry
column. Similarly, each row has a row header marked by 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. The interaction of a
column and a row is called a cell. Each cell contains the data for the
column and the row. In Excel, you refer to a cell by its address, comprising of its
corresponding column header and row header. For instance, cell D2 has a value of 1, and
cell C4 has a value of 2016. T0. Basic Operations: Copy/Rename/Delete a Worksheet (1) To
create a copy of the current Wholesaler worksheet, right click on the worksheet tab and
then select Move or Copy…, in the pop-up menu list. In the pop-up Move or Copy window,
select (move to end) so that the copy is placed on the right of the current Wholesaler
worksheet. Check Create a copy and then click OK. Note: Be default, the copy worksheet
will be placed in the same workbook. However, you can copy the worksheet to a different
workbook by selecting one from the existing opened workbooks or selecting (new book) for
a new workbook.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 3 of 51 A copy
of the Wholesaler worksheet named Wholesaler (2) is now created with exactly the same
format and data. (2) To rename a worksheet, right click on its worksheet tab and click

Rename in the pop-up menu list. Then type in a new name such as Wholesaler_Copy. Click
anywhere else, then the worksheet is renamed. (3) To remove a worksheet, right click on
its worksheet tab and click Delete in the pop-up menu list. In the pop-up prompt window,
click Delete.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 4 of 51 You
will see that the worksheet has been removed. T1. Freeze / Unfreeze Panes Following
previous instruction, create a copy of the Wholesaler worksheet and rename the copy as T1.
In the worksheet, the first row contains the labels for all columns. When you scroll down to
view other rows of the data, the label row will not be shown. This sometimes makes it
difficult to understand the meaning of the data in each column, especially for someone who
is not familiar with the worksheet. To mitigate this problem, we can freeze the label row so
that it is always shown on the top when you are scrolling through the worksheet. First
make sure that the scroll bar is at top. Under the View tab, click Freeze Panes. In the drop-
down menu list, click Freeze Top Row. Now the horizontal line below the first label row is
darker. No matter how you scroll down or up, the first label row is always visible and
freezed at the top.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 5 of 51 To
reverse back and unfreeze the label row, select the View tab, click Freeze Panes. In the drop-
down menu list, click Unfreeze Panes. T2. Formatting Create a copy of the T1 worksheet
and rename the copy as T2. The numbers in the Sales (in Millions of Dollars) column do not
have the $ sign. Let us add the $ signs by formatting the column properly. 1. First select the
whole Sales (in Millions of Dollars) column by clicking on its column header F.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 6 of 51 2.
Then select the Home tab, click on the small arrow for number format in the tool bar. In the
drop-down menu list, choose Currency. Now all the sales numbers are in the currency
format with the $ sign. We can also use the accounting format. Select the whole Sales (in
Millions of Dollars) column by clicking on its column header F. Then select the Home tab,
click on the small arrow for number format. In the drop-down menu list, choose Accounting.
Note: A quicker way is to click the $ button in the toolbar panel under Home tab.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 7 of 51 Now
all the sales numbers are in the accounting format. Remember to periodically click the save
icon to save what you have done. The T2 worksheet provides a nicer view of original data
with proper formats of sales numbers and frozen top label row. We will use it as the starting
point for the remaining tasks. T3 & T4. Conditional Formatting T3 Conditional Formatting –
Colors Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and rename the copy as T3. In practice, you often
need to highlight certain business records. One way to achieve this is Conditional
Formatting. For example, suppose you want to highlight the sales records between $15,000
and $30,000 (in millions of dollars) by Light Red Fill with Dark Red Text. 1. First select the
whole Sales (in Millions of Dollars) column by clicking on its column header F. 2. Select
Home tab, click Conditional Formatting in the toolbar, then click Highlight Cells Rules, and
then choose Between….
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 8 of 51 3. In
the pop-up Between window, types in the two boundary values 15000 and 30000, and

select Light Red Fill with Dark Red Text. Then click OK. Now sales numbers satisfying the
criterion are highlighted with the specified format. Now suppose you want to highlight the
sales less than $6,000 (in millions of dollars) by Green Fill with Dark Green Text. First,
select the whole Sales (in Millions of Dollars) column by clicking on its column header F.
Then select Home tab, click Conditional Formatting in the toolbar, then click Highlight Cells
Rules, and then choose Less than…. In the pop-up Less than window, type in 6000, and
select Green Fill with Dark Green Text. Then click OK.
sales numbers less than $6,000 (in millions of dollars) are highlighted with the specified
format. T4. Conditional Formatting – Data Bars Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and
rename the copy as T4. Data Bars allow a user to get a quick glance of relative magnitude of
the numbers in comparison to each other. 1. First select the whole Sales (in Millions of
Dollars) column by clicking on its column header F. Note: The Top/Bottom Rules allows
you to highlight cells if the value is: • Among Top 10 • Among Top 10% • Among Bottom 10
• Among Bottom 10% • Above Average • Below Average
Then select Home tab, click Conditional Formatting in the toolbar, then click Data Bars, and
then choose any of the style. Now the sales numbers have colored bars. Higher sales
numbers have wider bars and lower sales numbers have narrower bars. T5. Data Sorting
Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and rename the copy as T5. In Excel, the Sort command
allows you to arrange the business records in different orders. T5.1 Sort by One Column
Suppose you want to sort the data by Wholesaler Industry alphabetically from a to z (i.e., in
the ascending order). First, click any cell in the Wholesaler Industry column, then select
Data tab and click the ascending order button.
the data is sorted by Wholesaler Industry alphabetically in the ascending order. We can
also use the same method to sort the records by any other column. For example, suppose
now you want to sort the data by Sales in the descending order. First, click any cell in the
Sales (in Millions of Dollars) column, then select Data tab and click the descending order
button. Below is the result of sorting by Sales in the descending order. T5.2 Sort by
Multiple Columns Excel also allows a user to sort the data by multiple columns. Assume you
want to know for
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 12 of 51 each
Wholesaler Industry which year/month yields the highest sales. To achieve this, you can
sort the data by Wholesaler Industry in the ascending order first so that all the records
related to one Wholesaler Industry are grouped together. Then within each Wholesaler
Industry, sort the data by Sales in the descending order. There are two levels of sorting
involved here: the first level is by Wholesaler Industry such that the Wholesaler Industry
column will be sorted alphabetically; the second level is Sales such that within each
industry, the data will be sorted by Sales. 1. First, click any cell in any of the columns that
has data, then select Data tab and click the Sort button in the toolbar. 2. In the pop-up Sort
window, specify the multiple levels of sorting. You can add a sorting level by clicking Add
level. For each sorting, specify the Sort by Column, Sort On, and the sorting Order. Add the

sorting by Wholesaler Industry first and then add the sorting by Sales (in Millions of
Dollars). Then click OK. Now your data screen should look like below:
Examining the data, you will notice that the Wholesaler Industry column is sorted
alphatically. Meanwhile for rows within the same Wholesaler Industry, the data is sorted by
Sales in the descending order. In this way, you can easily spot which year/month yields the
highest sales figure for each Wholesaler Industry. T6 & T7. Data Filtering – AutoFilter T6
Simple AutoFilter Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and rename the copy as T6. Many
times, you are only interested in certain records while having no intention to delete the rest
of the records. You can use the AutoFilter command in Excel to only show records you are
interested in while hiding other records. Assume you only want to examine the sales
records for the Electrical & Electronic Goods industry in year 2016. 1. First, you need to
create the filters for each column. Click any cell in any of the columns that have data, then
select Data tab and click the Filter button in the toolbar. Self-Exercise: 1. Sort the data by
Year in the ascending order first and then by Month in the ascending order. 2. Sort the data
by Month in the ascending order first and then by Year in the ascending order? How is the
result different from 1?
each column displays a down arrow for a drop-down menu list. 2. Click the down arrow
next to Wholesaler Industry column, a list box that contains filter options appears. Check
only Electrical & Electronic Goods. Now only records related to the Electrical & Electronic
Goods industry are shown. 3. Now further filter the data by year (i.e., only 2016). Note:
When there are too many checkboxes and you only want to check one, you can uncheck
Select All first so that every box is unchecked. Then only check the box needed for the filter
(e.g., Electrical & Electronic Goods). Then click OK.
only the sales records for the Electrical & Electronic Goods industry in year 2016 are shown.
T7 AutoFilter Plus Sorting Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and rename the copy as T7.
Now assume you are only interested in sales records between $15,000 and $17,000 (in
millions of dollars) in Grocery and Related Products Industry and you want the records
sorted by sales in the descending order. 1. First create the filters for each column. 2. Then
click the down arrow next to the Wholesaler Industry column, and check only
Grocery & Related Products in the drop-down list. Then click OK. 3. Then click the down
arrow next to the Sales (in millions of dollars) column, in the drop-down menu list click Sort
Largest to Smallest. Your data screen should look like this: 4. Now we need to further filter
the records by magnitude of sales (i.e., between $15,000 and $17,000). Click the down
arrow next to Sales (in millions of dollars) column, in the drop-down menu list click
Number Filters, and then choose Between…. Note: The AutoFilter feature in Excel is
embedded with Sorting and Conditional Formatting.
the pop-up Custom AutoFilter window, fill in the two boundary numbers and then click OK.
Now only sales records satisfying all the criteria are displayed in the specified sorting order.

Note: Another way is to browse through all the numbers and check only numbers that
satisfy the filtering criteria. However, this is more cumbersome and often not
recommended.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 18 of 51 T8 &
T9. Data Visualization – Chart In practice, often we need to visualize the data so that it is
easy to interpret for others. This can be achieved through the Chart feature in Excel. Excel
allows for visual representation of data through a variety charts. The ability to visualize
data trends, comparisons, relationships, and the like may assist the viewer to better
comprehend the data. The purpose of this section is to demonstrate how to construct two
common charts within a worksheet—a column chart and a line chart. It is important to note
that the best visual representation depends on the data and the business question. T8
Column Chart Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and rename the copy as T8. Suppose you
are interested in presenting the sales figure of each durable goods industry in May 2015. To
visualize this, you can create a column chart in which the industry name appears on the
horizontal axis and the sales figure appears in the vertical axis. 1. Given that we are only
interested in certain records of the entire data, we need to use AutoFilter to only show
relevant records first while hiding other records. Your data should look like this. 2. To
create the column chart, we only need two columns: the Wholesaler Industry column
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 19 of 51 and
the Sales (in Millions of Dollars) column. Select the Wholesaler Industry column first by
clicking its column header, keep CTRL pressed and then select the Sales (in Millions of
Dollars) column. NOTE: if this does not work for inserting the Chart in the next step, you
should try: (1)select all the Wholesaler Industry data including the column title from B1 to
B324, keep CTRL pressed and then select the Sales data from F1 to F324; or (2) select just
the Wholesaler Industry data excluding the column title from B306 to B324, keep CTRL
pressed and then select the Sales data excluding the column title from F306 to F324. 3.
Then select Insert tab, click the icon for Column or Bar Chart, and in the drop-down menu
list select one of the column styles such as the first 2-D column style. Now you can see that
a chart has been added to the worksheet. Note: you may also click Recommended Charts
button and then the All Charts tab in the pop-up window to select the best chart for your
business question from possible charts that could be produced.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 20 of 51 The
chart is given a default title that can be changed. Click in the chart area margin, and then we
can move the chart around while keeping the mouse pressed. Note: For any text, you can
also change its style such as font size, font color, text alignment, etc. using the text
formatting tools under Home tab.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 21 of 51 Click
in the chart area margin, move the mouse and point it at the corner of the chart. Then we
can also enlarge or shrink the chart while keeping the mouse pressed. 4. Currently there
are no explanations of the two axes. We can also add titles for the axes. Click in the chart
area margin to select the chart first. A quick toolbar for chart formatting will show up. The +
button is used to adding or deleting chart elements. Click it to show all the available chart
elements. Check Axis Titles so that titles are added for both axes. Now both axes titles have

been added. Name them properly. Again, you can change the size of the chart to fully show
the name of each industry.
Note: Another way to add chart elements is to through the Add Chart Element button under
Design tab.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 23 of 51 T9
Line Chart Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and rename the copy as T9. Suppose you are
interested in demonstrating and comparing the monthly sales trend of Beer, Wine, &
Distilled Alcoholic Beverages industry in year 2015 and year 2016. To visualize this, you can
create two line charts within the same graph: one showing the sales trend for year 2015 and
the other showing the sales trend for year 2016. 1. Clearly to make our job easier and avoid
the distraction from irrelevant data, we need to use AutoFilter to only show relevant sales
records first. Your data should look like this. 2. Let us first create the line chart for year
2016. First, use your mouse to select both the Month Name and the Sales (in Millions of
Dollars) data (including the label row) for year 2016.
Select Insert tab, click the icon for Line chart, and then select one of the line styles such as
Line with Markers. 4. A line chart showing the monthly sales trend in year 2016 has been
added to the current worksheet. Move the chart around to be not overlapping with the data,
change chart titles, and add titles for both horizontal and vertical axes (see the instructions
for T8). 5. Now we need to add the second line chart for year 2015 to the same graph. First,
click in the chart area margin to select the chart, right click, and click Select Data… in the
pop-up menu list.
the pop-up Select Data Source window, click Add to add a new data series and line. 7. In the
pop-up Edit Series window, add a name for the new data series -- 2015, and then click the
select cell icon to select the sales data for this new line (clean the cell in Series values first).
Select the sales cells from January to December for year 2015.
You will notice that the line chart has already changed with a new l ine added. Then click
OK. 9. However, notice that the blue line’s series name is the default Series1, which is not
informative. Let us change it to a meaningful one like 2016. Select Series1, and then click
Edit. 10. In the pop-up Edit Series window, change the series name to 2016 and then click
OK twice.
Now we need to add legends to the graph so that any reader would know that the the blue
line is for year 2016 and the yellow line is for year 2015. Click the chart area margin to
select the chart. Click + button to show available chart elements. Check Axis Titles. Now the
line chart is finalized. T10. Data Summarization – Subtotal Create a copy of the T2
worksheet and rename the copy as T10. The Subtotal feature in Excel allows a user to
quickly calculate the totals for a subset of the data. Assume want to show the total sales
volume for each industry in each year. Namely, we need to sum up all the individual
monthly sales numbers for each industry/year combination, including Furniture & Home

Furnishings 2016, Furniture & Home Furnishings 2015, Electrical & Electronic Goods 2016,
Electrical & Electronic Goods 2015, etc. This means that all the sales numbers for each
industry/year combination need to be grouped together so that a total can be calculated. 1.
Therefore, the data to be sorted properly first – by Wholesaler Industry first (first level
sorting) and then by Year within each industry (second level sorting).
Then click any cell in any of the columns that has data, select the Data tab, click Subtotal. 3.
In the pop-up Subtotal window, several parameters need to be set up properly. Remember
that we want to summarize all the sales numbers for each industry/year combination.
Select Sum for Use Function, and check Sales for Add subtotal to as we will add up sales to
get a total sales amount. The At each change in: has to be set up correctly. In this case, it has
to be Year so that: Excel scans the records row by row; whenever Excel detects a change in
the value of the Year field, it will use the sum function to calculate total sales before the
change happens. In other words, when rows change from 2012 to 2013, Excel calculate a
sum, which is the total sales for Apparel, Piece Goods, & Notions in year 2012; similarly,
when rows changes from 2013 to 2014, Excel calculate a sum, which is the total sales for
Apparel, Piece Goods, & Notions in year 2013. This is exactly what we want. Note: This is
how Subtotal works: Excel will scan all the records sequentially row by row starting from
the first row, and perform the specified use function (i.e., sum) on the specified column (i.e.,
Sales) once Excel detects a change in the value of the specified column for At each change in
(i.e., Month).
Click OK. Now a total sales amount is generated for each industry/year combination. T11.
Data Summarization – PivotTable Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and rename the copy
as T11. In Excel, PivotTable is a multi-dimensional summarization tool that helps users
quickly summarize data and present it with different details. For example, suppose you
want to view the total sales volume for each Wholesaler Category (i.e., Durable Goods and
Nondurable Goods) in each year. 1. First, click any cell in any of the columns that has data.
Then select Insert tab, click the PivotTable button (or click the Tables dropdown menu list
and then click on the PivotTable button if the PivotTable button is not directly visible). 2. In
the pop-up Create PivotTable window, first you will notice that the entire data has been
automatically selected. Check Existing worksheet so that the PivotTable will be added to the
existing worksheet. Then click the select cell icon to select where exactly the PivotTable will
be placed in the existing worksheet. Self-Exercise: 1. Use Subtotal to generate the total sales
amount across all industries for each month of each year.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 30 of 51 Hold
your mouse pressed and move your mouse to draw an area. By default, the worksheet has
been scrolled to the bottom. It is advised that you draw the PivotTable area at the top of the
worksheet so that it can be easily found. So scroll up until you reach the top and then draw a
rectangle. Click the select cell icon to get back and then click OK.
The PivotTable has been added. We need to set up its parameters such as Rows, Columns,
Values, and Filters in the property panel on the right. Pivot table usually uses grouping

fields to group records. The grouping fields serve as Rows or Columns of the pivot table. It
shows summary information based on the grouping fields specified in the Rows and
Columns. Since we want to view the total sales volume report for each Wholesaler Category
in each year, we need to group records by Wholesaler Category and by Year. Therefore, we
can set up Wholesaler Category as the Row and Year as the Column (or vice visa). Then the
PivotTable will show the summary information for each Wholesaler Industry in each year.
To decide what summary information is shown, we can set up the Values parameter to use
different types of summarized information such as sum, average, count, etc. for different
fields such as Sales. To set up what fields be used as Rows, Columns, or Values, drag the field
to its corresponding box and then release the mouse. Note: If the pivot table is not placed
near the top of the worksheet and you want to re-position it, click the pivot table to select it
first. Then click Move PivotTable under Analyze tab, and re-draw the area in the Move
PivotTable pop-up window.
Now the pivot table showing the sum of sales for each wholesaler category in each year has
been created. 4. However, all the total sales numbers are not in the accounting format. Let
us add the accounting format for them. Click the arrow near Sum of Sales.. and select Value
Field Settings.. in the pop-up menu list. Then in the pop-up Value Field Settings window,
click Number Format. Note: Click the pivot table to show the property panel. If the property
panel is hidden, click the Field List button under the Analyze tab to show it.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 33 of 51 In
the new pop-up Format Cells window, select Accounting and then click OK twice. Now all
the sales numbers in the pivot table are in the accounting format. 5. To show the total sales
volume for each industry in each year within each wholesaler
category, we can further group the records by industry within the wholesaler category.
Therefore, we set up Wholesaler Industry to be the second-level of grouping Rows. Now
the pivot table provides more detailed summary information about the total sales volume in
each industry within each wholesaler category in each year. The two wholesaler categories
can be folded to hide the industry-level information or expanded to show more detailed
industry-level summary information. Note: You can add more fields to Rows or Columns to
add more levels of groupings. In addtion, you can add more summary information in the
Values box. For example, you can drag Sales (in Millions of Dollars) again to Values box, and
set it up to show the average monthly sales figure (select Average as the function in Value
Field Settings) for each industry in each year.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 35 of 51 6. To
make the pivot table being able to decide what months are included or excluded in the
calculation of the summary information, we need to add month or month name as a fiter.
Drag Month or Month Name to the Filters box. Then you will notice that a filter has been
added at the top of the pivot table. Click the arrow for the filter to show the filter list, check
Select Multiple Items and you will notice that you can decide which months are included in
the calculation of total sales. If we check January, February, and March. Then the
PivotTable will show the total sales for each industry in the first quarter of each year.

let us check all the months so that the pivot table shows the total annual sales by
unchecking Select Multiple Items and then clicking OK. T12. Data Summarization Plus
Visualization – PivotChart Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and rename the copy as T12.
PivotChart is PivotTable plus Chart. Suppose we want to know how is the total sales
distributed among Durable Goods and Nondurable Goods in September. We need to use
Self-Exercise: 1. Compare the total numbers in the pivot table with the numbers in T10, are
they the same? 2. Create a pivot table to show the total sales across all industries in each
month of each year. Then compare your answers with the answers in the self-exercise for
T10.
PivotTable to generate the summary information of sales and then create a pie chart based
on the summary data to show the distribution between Durable Goods and Nondurable
Goods. This is exactly the idea for MAC users as PivotChart is not available in MAC
(demonstrated later). However for PC users, we can directly use PivotChart to create the
PivotTable and the Pie Chart at the same time. 1. First, click any cell in any of the columns
that has data, select Insert tab, click the arrow below PivotChart, and select PivotChart &
PivotTable in the drop-down menu list. 2. In the pop-up Create PivotTable window, check
Existing Worksheet, scroll up to the top of the worksheet, and click the select cell icon to
draw an area for where the PivotTable will be placed. Then click OK. You will see that both
a PivotTable and a Chart has been added to the current worksheet. You can move them to a
better position. 3. Now we need to set up the PivotTable correctly. Remember that we are
interested in the total sales for Durable Goods and Nondurable Goods in September.
Therefore, we can set up Wholesaler Category as the Row and Month Name as the column.
Also add the accounting format for the sales numbers in the pivot table.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 38 of 51 By
default, the associated chart with a pivot table is a column chart. 4. Now we filter the pivot
table to only show the total of sales for September while hiding the total of sales for other
months. Note: Each Row or Column in a pivot table is also embeded with AutoFilter. You can
click the down arrow for Row Labels or Column Labels to pop up the filter list and filter the
records used for creating the summary information. Therefore, even though we are only
interested in the total sales in September, we can create the sum of sales for all months and
then filter the pivot table to only show sum of sales for September. NEVER use AutoFilter to
filter the data first before creating a pivot table (it may lead to wrong results). PivotTable
has the AutoFilter function embedded, and you should use the AutoFilter function within
the PivotTable after it has been created.
Now only the sum of sales for September is shown. And you will also notice that the Chart
has been automatically updated because it is also always synchronized with the data in the
PivotTable. 5. We need to change the default column chart to a Piet Chart. First right click
in the PivotChart area margin to select it. In the pop-up meu list, click Change Chart Type.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 40 of 51 In
the pop-up Change Chart Type window, select Pie and choose one of the styles. Then click

OK.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 41 of 51 You
will see that the pie chart has been created. Change the title of the pie chart to September
Sales Across All Years to make it more informative. 6. However, the pie chart does not show
the percentage of each pie. We need to add it to make it more informative. First, single click
any of the pie to select the whole pie, right click and select Add Data Labels and next Add
Data Labels in the pop-up menu list. Now the sales figures have been added to each pie.
Now we need to change the numbers to percentages. Right click on the pie and select
Format Data Labels in the pop-up menu list. In the panel, check Percentage ( and uncheck
Value if you only want to show percentage) to get the finalized pie chart. T12.1 MAC Users:
PivotTable + Chart to Replace PivotChart Since there is no PivotChart feature in MAC
version of Excel, you need to use PivotTable to
generate the summary information first and then create a pie chart based on the data in the
pivot table. 1. Create the pivot table. 2. Select relevant numbers in the PivotTable that will
be used to create the pie chart (do not include the Grand Total). 3. Click the Insert tab and
click Pie chart to insert a pie chart. 4. Finally, follow the earlier steps for PC users to add
percentage data labels and an appropriate title for the pie chart.
& 14. Data Generation – Formula and Function Excel allows using formulas and built-in
functions to create new data based on the existing data, which is often used in practice. The
purpose of this section is to demonstrate some exemplar functions such as IF, COUNTIF,
SUM, AVERAGE, etc. T13 IF and COUNTIF Function Create a copy of the T2 worksheet and
rename the copy as T13. Suppose we want to separate sales below $10,000 and sales of at
least $10,000. We can create a new column “Less than $10,000” and use formula to make
the cell display “Yes” if the sales figure is less than $10,000 and “No” otherwise. 1. First add
the new column labeled Less than $10,000. Widen it so that the label is fully shown. 2. Then
double click the cell G2 to enter the formula. In Excel, every formula starts with the = sign.
Type = to tell Excel that we will use a formula. We will use the IF function, which has three
arguments separated by comma: =IF(logical_test, value_if_true, value_if_false) Logical_test:
This is an expression that can result in True or False. An expression for logical test is usually
made with logical operations including =, <>, >, <, >=, <=, etc. In this example, the expression
is F2<10000, which evaluates is the value in cell F2 is less than 1000 or not. Value_if_true:
the value the IF function returns if the expression in the logical test turns out to be True. In
this case, we set it to be “Yes” so that the cell will display “Yes” (“Yes” as a text should be
wrapped by quotations). Value_if_false: the value the IF function returns if the expression in
the logical test turns out to be False. In this case, it should be set to be “No”.
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 45 of 51 We
continue to type IF, and you will notice that Excel displays a list of functions that start with
IF. We continue to finish the formula: =IF(F2<10000, “Yes”, “No”), and then press Enter.
You will notice that the cell’s value has changed to “No” because the value of cell F2, 31579,
is not less than 10000. 3. You can copy and paste the formula from G2 to the other cells

such as G3 and G4, and see that the formulas change automatically. This is because in the
original formula, F2 is a relative reference, which will be changed automatically when the
formula is pasted to other cells. There is a much quicker way to copy and past the formula
to the rest of the cells in the Less than $10,000 column. First click the cell G4 to select it,
then move the mouse to the right bottom corner, and you will see the mouse has changed to
a cross sign. With the cross sign, double click to copy and paste the formula in the current
cells to all the cells below it.
Now we need to count the number of sales figure which is less than $10,000 and the
number of sales figure which is at least $10,000 using the COUNTIF function. First add two
texts in empty cells to label the two counts. The length of the texts is more than the width
of the cell and it overflows to other cells. We can merge cells to make the texts fully fit
within the cell. First select all the cells you want to merge. Then select the Home tab, then
click Merge & Center. Do this for each label. Now the new cell is much wider. We can change
the text alignment to be left-aligned.
Now type in the COUNTIF function to count the number of “Yes” and the number of “No”.
The first parameter of the COUNTIF function is the data range. You can type in the cell range
directly G2:G1141 or use mouse to select the cell range. The second parameter, the
condition to be met for each cell in the data range, is “Yes” as we are counting how many
cells equal “Yes”. Press Enter. Type in “=COUNTIF(G2:G1141,”No”) for the cell below. Press
Enter and the results are shown. Note: In Excel, you can press Ctrl + ` to toggle between
formula view and value view for cells. For example, once you press Ctrl + `, you will see the
following view showing all the formulas in cells calculated by formulas: If you Ctrl + `
again, you will get back to the default view under which the value of each cell is displayed.
Summary Statistics & Absolute Reference vs. Relative Reference Create a copy of the T2
worksheet and rename the copy as T14. Now you want to generate basic statistics such as
total, average, max, and min of the monthly sales figures and percentage numbers indicating
how does each individual sales figure contributes to the total sales. 1. Add the labels in
empty cells for the basic statistics and widen the cells a little bit to make the texts fully fit in.
2. In cell I2 for sum of sales, enter formula =SUM(F2:F1141). The cell should return the total
of all sales. Similarly, enter =AVERAGE(F2:F1141) in cell I3 to calculate the average monthly
sale. Enter =MAX(F2:F1141)”in cell I3 to calculate the maximum monthly sales figure. Enter
=MIN(F2:F1141) in cell I4 to calculate the minimal monthly sales figure. Note: In Excel, a
data range is indicated by starting cell:ending cell. A1:B2 A1:B1 A1:A2 Many times it is
recommended that you type in the precise data range in the formula. Otherwise, your
formula may yield wrong results due to unforeseeable situations. For example,
“=COUNTIF(G:G, "Yes")” would evaluate every single cell in the G column and yield the same
results because every cell after G1141 is empty. Yet, your result would be wrong if there is
any additional “Yes” or “No” below cell G1141. Wrong
Now let us use column G to display how much each individual sales figure contribute to the

total in percentage. First, add the column label. 4. In the cell G, type in the formula =F2/I2.
A number has been generated, but it is not in the percentage format. Select the Home tab,
click on the small arrow near General in the format panel. In the drop-down menu list,
choose Percentage. Now you see the first sales figure contributes 0.11% to the total sales.
Let us copy the formula and paste it to the next cell G3. First, you should notice that the G3
cell is also in the percentage format. This is so because when you copy and paste formulas,
the format is also copied to the new cell by default. However, the result shows 23.96%
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 50 of 51 even
though the sales figure is smaller than the earlier sales figure. This does not look right!!
Check the formula for G3 and you notice that the formula used in the cell is =F3/I3, not
=F3/I2. This is because in the first formula, we use relative reference. When you paste the
formula to another cell, the reference changes automatically. We know that the
denominator in the formula should always be I2. We need to use absolute reference for it so
that it is fixed and does not automatically change. Let us go back to cell G2, change the
formula from =F2/I2 to =F2/$I$2. $I$2 is an absolute reference, telling Excel that it always
refer to the absolute address I2 and it should not be changed when the formula is pasted to
other cells. The above absolute reference is applicable to any formula and any function
(e.g., if, countif,…etc). Now copy the formula and paste it to cell G2 again, you will notice
that the formula applied Note: The $ sign in front of the column header specifies that the
column header will not change when copying and pasting formulas. Similarly, the $ sign in
front of the row header specifies that the row heasder will not change when copying and
pasting formulas. Absolute Reference When copied and pasted to other cells: some or all
parts fixed $I2 $I3, $I4, $I5 (column header fixed no matter where it is pasted) I$2 J$2, K$2,
L$2 (row header fixed no matter where it is pasted) $I$2 $I$2, $I$2, $I$2 (entire address
fixed no matter where it is pasted) Relative Reference When copied and pasted to other
cells: automatically changed I2 I3, I4, I5 (if pasted to cells in the same column) J2, K2, L2 (if
pasted to cells in the same row) J3, K4, L5 (if pasted to cells in different rows and columns)
MIS 303 – Introduction to Business Information Systems: Excel Tutorial Page 51 of 51 this
time is =F3/$I$2 and the calculated result is 7.72%. The denominator is still $I$2 and this is
CORRECT! Now let us copy the formula to the rest of the cells. And you will get the final
and correct results. Note: Why use =F3/$I$2 instead of =F3/27834907 to caculate the
percentage contribution of each individual sales figure to the total sales since we know that
that total sales is $27,834,907? Think about the disadvantage of using =F3/27834907: what
if there is an error in one or more of the individual sales figures? Once the error(s) has been
fixed with updated sales figure(s), the total sales (i.e., the value in cell $I$2) would be
changed. In this case, you need to update the formula for calculating the percentage
contributions. This problem is avoided if =F3/$I$2 is used: $I$2 refers to the absolute cell
displaying the total sales, regardless of what its value is. Therefore, it is recommended that
you use the cell reference as much as possible instead of its actual value for any formula so
that the formula is always correct no matter how the value of the cell might change.

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