sorting in a pivot table

[Elise Nerlove]

hello

I have a list of geographies in my rows and 2 brands listed in my columns. my values are dollar sales. I want to sort my geogrpahies by dollar sales of JUST ONE OF THE BRANDS. when i try the traditional way to sort: click on the geography filter > more options > sort by > descending order by dollar sales my pivot table worst by (what im guessing is) an aggregate of both brand's dollar sales? In any case, i dont see an area to sort by choosing one brand....is there a way to do this?

Im working in excel 2010...thanks for helping!

elise

 

[capparfrank]

Elise,

This is what I see in excel 2007:
Method 1: (this is very close to what you describe... you're right on top of it)

From the menu under the auto filter 'carot': Select 'More Sort Options' and then pick ascending or descending from the Sort(Geography) dialog box. Then click the button 'More Options...'

and select 'Values in selected column' radio button in the 'Sort By' section of the 'More Sort Options(Geography)' dialog. Then select the range in your pivot table that you'll want to sort by (use the button provided to the right of the text box, I don't know what to call it, looks like a tiny little spreadsheet on the incon with a red arrow pointing to top left cell).
'OK' your way out. hopefully it worked

Method 2: (easier, i think)
click on a value cell in your pivot table in the column of the brand you want sort your geographies by.

go up to the ribbon, click on the 'Options' tab that is specific to Pivot Table Tools. One of the groups there is 'Sort'. When you click on the directional sort buttons (ascending/descending) you should see what one would expect-- the values of the column with the active cell will sort in order, and the pivot table will reorder geographies appropriately. FYI, if you click the general sort button, you can even get a horizontal sort going.

hope I explained OK.

GL