group items in a pivot table using wildcards

[Guest]

Question re: Excel pivot tables...
I have a pivot table where we grouped customer names alphabetically (all A's
together, etc) But this grouping only works for customers already in the
pivot table when we did the grouping. If a new customer is added to the
underlying data, the pivot table leaves them as a separate item in the table.
Is there a way to define a group using wildcards, so that the first group is
for customers named "A*", etc?

Thanks
RonB

 

[Guest]

You could add a column to the data that feeds the pivot table and fill it
with the first letter of the last name of each entry (using "=left(A47,1)",
eg). Then make this column the first row item for the pivot table.
Will

 

[Guest]

Roadkill,

Thanks - I see what you mean, and yes, grouping that column would solve my
problem. Unfortunately, I can't edit the table structures in the SQLServer
database to fix my report without affecting the main client application. In
dedicated reporting tools you can create groups, and leave all the rest of
the results in a single group named "other". I'm searching for a way to
mimic that behaviour in Excel.

RonB