What are pivot tables, and how can they be helpful in analyzing data?
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A pivot-table is a tool to dynamically show a slice and group multivariate data in tabular form.
For example, when we have the following data structure
Region Year Product Sales
US 2008 Phones 125
EU 2008 Phones 352
US 2008 Mouses 52
EU 2008 Mouses 65
US 2009 Phones 140
EU 2009 Phones 320
US 2009 Mouses 60
EU 2009 Mouses 100
A pivot table can for example display a table with the sum of all products with in the rows the years and in the columns the regions.
All dimensions of the table can be switched easily. Also the data fields shown can be changed. This is called pivoting.
The tool is useful in exploratory data analyses. Because it is a dynamic tool, it can be used to visually detect patterns and outliers etc.
Most spreadsheet applications have support for this kind of tables.
An image from wikipedia: 
answered Jul 21, 2010 at 6:09
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1$\begingroup$ Note that in the business intelligence world this is also known as OLAP or Online Analytical Processing or Cubes. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 4, 2015 at 5:50