Welcome to Excel Jet Consult blog post. In this tutorial, we will learn how to use the new Ideas tool in Excel available to Office 365 users.
The Ideas enables users to have a deeper understanding of data through high-level visual and summaries, trends and patterns. The Ideas tool is in the Home tab as seen in the caption below
The Ideas tool requires internet connection to use. In the caption below, we have a data that we want to use the Ideas tool.
Note, the data is formatted in Excel Table using CTRL + T and named Data_tbl1. All that is required is to click anywhere in the data and in the Home tab, click on Ideas.
In the caption below, we can see wide range of discoveries about our data. Notable among the options is the PivotTable report showing Sum of Total by States.
We can easily and quickly generate PivotTable report when we click on the + icon located in the bottom left of the Ideas PivotTable result.
When I clicked on the + icon, Excel immediately create a new sheet tab named Idea1. In the sheet tab, we have the PivotTable report showing Sum of Total by States. One good thing about the PivotTable report generated using Ideas tool is that we do not need to apply Currency format to our PT report. Once we click on the + icon, the numeric values are automatically formatted in the specified regional currency settings. In my case, it is formatted in Nigerian Naira currency symbol. See the caption below
Furthermore, we can see that Connor Rulibeth has the highest Total among all the Account Manager operating at the State of PHC. Therefore, when I click on the + icon, Excel creates new sheet tab named Ideas2 which contains filtered Pivot Table and Pivot Bar Chart. In the caption below, we notice quite a few things which are:
- The PivotTable numeric values is not automatically formatted in the specified currency which is the reverse of what we did earlier.
- The Chart Title is explicitly explained
- In the Bar chart, the longest Series, which is Connor Rulibeth, is automatically formatted in unique Fill Colour
- The PivotChart horizontal value axis has is displayed in Thousand Units Label
Finally, the Ideas tool is a fantastic tool that is handy to efficiently analyze one’s data to create intelligence and personalized suggestions