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Building a Pivot Grid

A Pivot Grid is a cross-tabular report. You drag fields into zones to summarize cost across two dimensions at once, for example WBS down the side and fiscal year across the top, with cost in the cells. Use it for analysis and roll-ups.
This page is part of the Report Studio guide.

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Build it

1

Create the report

On the landing page, click Create New Report and choose Pivot Grid.
2

Choose your projects

Select one or more project snapshots.
3

Start from a template or scratch

The Quick Start section offers preset templates for common layouts. Pick one to get a head start, or click Start from Scratch.
4

Place fields into zones

Use the Pivot Field Manager to drag fields into four zones (see below). Drag within a zone to reorder, drag to another zone to move, or click the X to remove.
5

Set data field aggregation

Click the summary-type badge on a Data field to choose how it is summarized: sum, avg, count, min, max, diffRow (difference across rows), or diffCol (difference across columns).
6

Configure display settings

Open Display Settings to set layout, totals, captions, and interaction options (see below).
7

Add a header, then save

Add a title, subtitle, and description, then click Save.

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The four zones

Rename any field for display by clicking its name and editing the caption. This does not change the underlying data.
Pivot Field Manager showing the Row, Column, Data, and Filter zones with fields placed

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Display settings

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Layout

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Totals

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Total captions

  • Subtotal Label: customize the subtotal label; use {0} for the group name (placeholder is {0} Total).
  • Grand Total Row Label: customize the grand-total row label (placeholder is Grand Total).
  • Grand Total Column Label: customize the grand-total column header.

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Display

  • Word Wrap: wrap long header text instead of cutting it off (default off).
  • Alternating Rows: zebra striping for readability (default off).

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Interaction

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Fiscal Year prefix

As with the Data Grid, the fiscal-year prefix is detected automatically when all projects match, and offered as a Show Fiscal Year Prefix toggle when you mix fiscal and calendar projects. Pivot Display Settings: Layout, Totals, and Interaction options

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Performance: apply filters early

Like the Data Grid, the Pivot Grid runs on the server. Reduce the data it has to crunch:
Use Filter Fields and pick fewer projects. A pivot over one WBS branch and one cost class is far quicker than the entire project across every dimension. Add filters before expanding everything.
  • Fewer Row and Column fields means a smaller cross-tab to compute.
  • Expand sections on demand rather than expanding all at once on a large pivot.
  • Results are cached for up to 30 minutes for the same projects, fields, and filters.

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Pitfalls to avoid

  • Putting a very high-cardinality field on Columns (for example, monthly periods across many years) creates a huge, slow grid. Filter the time range, or move it to Rows.
  • Choosing the wrong summary type. Cost fields almost always want sum. count counts rows, not money. avg/min/max can mislead if your data has Budget, Actual, and Earned rows mixed together; consider splitting those with calculated fields first (see the Budget vs Actual recipe).
  • Expecting row totals with Tree layout. Some subtotal options apply only to the Standard row header layout.
  • Assuming a saved view remembers filters. It remembers layout, not filters.

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Where to go next

Building Charts

Pie, bar, stacked, line, area, and trellis charts.

Calculated Field Cookbook

Ready-to-use formulas and how to fix wrong results.