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! Excel Howtos, Pivot Tables & Charts

How to use Excel Data Model &

Relationships
Last updated on February 6, 2020

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Chandoo

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Welcome to Chandoo.org

Thank you so much for visiting. My aim

is to make you awesome in Excel &
Power BI. I do this by sharing videos,
tips, examples and downloads on this
website. There are more than 1,000
pages with all things Excel, Power BI,
Dashboards & VBA here. Go ahead and
spend few minutes to be AWESOME.

Read my story • FREE Excel tips

book

In simple words, this feature helps you connect one set of data with another set of data so

that you can create combined pivot reports.

Want an AWESOME
Excel Class?
Practical Example – V(X)LOOKUP hell vs. Data Model heaven

Lets say you are looking sales data for your company. You have transaction data like below.

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Excel School made me great at ⋆!

! ⋆!⋆!
⋆
work. ⋆
!

– Brenda

And you want to find out how many units you are selling by product category and customer’s

gender. FREE Goodies for you...

Unfortunately, you only have product ID & customer ID.

With VLOOKUP Hell,

1. You first fetch all the customer and product data and place them in separate ranges.

2. Then write a vlookup formula to fetch product category, another to fetch customer

gender.

3. Then fill down the formulas for entire list of transactions.

4. Now make a pivot table.

Assuming you have 30,000 transactions, you have to write 60,000 VLOOKUP formulas to create
100 Excel Formulas List
this one report!!!

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1.

First set up your data as tables. To create a table, select any cell in range and press

CTRL+T. Specify a name for your table from design tab. Read introduction to Excel 20 Excel Templates
tables to understand more.
Calendars, invoices, trackers and much
2. Now, go to data ribbon & click on relationships button. more. All free, fun and fantastic.
3. Click New to create a new relationship.

4. Select Source table & column name. Map it to target table & column name. It does not

matter which order you use here. Excel is smart enough to adjust the relationship.

13 Advanced Pivot Table Skills

Power Query, Data model, DAX, Filters,
Slicers, Conditional formats and beautiful
5. Add more relationships as needed. charts. It's all here.

Using relationships in Pivot reports & analysis

1. Select any table and insert a pivot table (Insert > Pivot table, more on Pivot tables).

2. Make sure you check the “Add this data to data model” check box.

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− Recent Articles on
Chandoo.org

Advanced
3. In your pivot table field list, check “ALL” instead of “ACTIVE” to see all table names.
Data
4. Select fields from various tables to create a combined pivot report or pivot chart
Viz
Example: Category & Gender Sales Report with
Excel –
1. Add category to row labels Live
2. Add gender to column labels Event
3. Add quantity to values on 26
4. and your report is ready! March
Come and join
me for a free
live event on
advanced
data
visualization
with Excel on
26th March
(Friday).
Details inside.

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13 to get
formula Department
examples Budget
to really for a
understand Month
it [Homework]

How to Dynamic
embed Arrays
Excel Live
Things to keep in mind when you using relationships files, Masterclass
calculators – Replay
Same data types in both columns: Columns that you are connecting in both tables on your
website?
should have same data type (ie both numbers or dates or text etc.)
– Step by
One to one or One to many relationships only: Excel 2013 supports only one to step
many or one to one relationships. That means one of the tables must have no duplicate instructions

values on the column you are linking to. (for example products table should not have

duplicate product IDs). + Best of the lot

You can add slicers too: You can slice these pivot tables on any field you want (just

like normal pivot tables). For example, you can further slice the above report on

customer’s profession or product’s SKU size.

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summary type to “Distinct count”. Here is a tip explaining how to get distinct counts

in Excel pivots.

Measures & DAX: Once you have a Data Model, you can unleash the full Power Pivot

features on your workbook. You can create measures (using DAX language) and

calculate things that are otherwise impossible with regular Excel. Here is an example of

percentage of something calculation with DAX & Data Model, to get started.

Pivots from data in other files & databases: You can combine data model with the

abilities of Power Query to create pivots from data in other places. For example, you can

make a pivot from sales data in SAP with customer data in CRM system. Here is an

overview of what is Power Query?

Pivots from more than 1mn rows of data: You can connect to very large datasets

and make pivots from them with the help of data model. Here is a demo of how to set

up data model for 1+mn rows of data.

Convert Pivot Tables to formulas: Once you have a data model based pivot table,

you can turn it in to a set of formulas. You can access this feature from “Analyze” ribbon.

This will replace your pivot with a bunch of CUBE formulas. Here is an overview of

CUBE formulas.

Drawbacks of Data Model:

Of course, its not all cup cakes and coffee with Data Model. There are a few drawbacks of data model

based pivot tables.

Compatibility: Data model & relationship feature is available only in Excel 2013 or

above. This means, you cannot create or share such pivot reports with people using

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Click here to download Excel data model demo file. It contains 3 different tables and a

combined pivot report (with slicer) to show you what is possible.

Do you use relationships?

Ever since discovering PowerPivot, I kind of stopped using VLOOKUP (or XLOOKUP) for most of my

own analysis. Now that relationships are part of main Excel functionality, I am using them even

more.

What about you? Are you using relationships & data model in Excel? What cool things are you

doing with it? Share your tips with us using comments.

Want even more? Try PowerPivot

If you want even more out of your reports, then try PowerPivot. It is a new feature in Excel 2013
! Facebook " Twitter # LinkedIn $ Share this tip with your colleagues
(available as add-in in Excel 2010) that can let you do lots of powerful analysis on massive amounts

of data. Here is an introduction to PowerPivot.

Your first name

Your email address

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! 40 Comments
% Ask a question or say something...
! Tagged under data model, downloads, excel 2013, Learn Excel, pivot tables, relationship,
vlookup

! Category: Excel Howtos, Pivot Tables & Charts

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What is XLOOKUP? 13 formula examples Two-level Data Validation [Excel Trick]

to really understand it

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These Pivot Table tricks massively save Highlight due dates in Excel – Show
your time items due, overdue and completed in
different colors

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est Wishes. And when they are publishing yo

y understanding was (via PowerPivot Pro blog)

el 2013 in all versions; my recollection is that
How to show positive / risecolors
negative subscription editions. Thus, for individual
Number to Words – Excel Formula
ason I have moved some of my projects to
in area charts? [Quick tip]
for all Excel 2013 users , or will it be restricted
and unavailable for some users?

Reply

Hui... says:
July 2, 2013 at 12:09 am

@Buzz
I believe that Power Pivot is included with all MS Office installs in 2013.

Have a read of:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-001/excel-help/version-compatibility-between-powerpivot-
data-models-in-excel-2010-and-excel-2013-HA103929426.aspx
http://office.microsoft.com/en-001/excel-help/whats-new-in-powerpivot-in-excel-2013-
HA102893837.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2013#Comparison (Note that Excel isn't
listed as having Multiple editions)

Reply

Oz says:
July 2, 2013 at 12:19 am

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spreadsheet that has PP or PV, Package 1 will not.

Reply

3. Oz says:
July 1, 2013 at 5:10 pm

Just this weekend I upgraded from Home Premium to Professional Plus and spent time with
Power View and PowerPivot.

Up to that point I never saw myself in VLOOKUP Hell, and it may not be going away any time
soon. I'm surprised to discover how many of my clients are still on Excel 2003. And then I have
Mac users who don't have a lot of this great stuff available to them at all.

These are great features and I'm going to dive into the Data Models. Unfortunately, I suspect, for
me, the practical use may be limited to blogposts because I can't teach Power View in my
workshops or send a client a spreadsheet that has a Power View in it.

Reply

thundom says:
July 21, 2013 at 11:23 pm

Hi OZ,

I think the Microsoft would only upgrade the excel to a certain level instead of making it so
powerful that it might threat their BI product. You know these "powerful" stuff can be
easily done with a entry level crystal reports version.

Glad to listen to ur opinion on it.

I spent quite some time and energy on Excel and used it a lot, but now I am focusing
energy on BI software like crystal reports.

Reply

thundom says:
July 21, 2013 at 11:25 pm

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I don't think Excel tries to be the solver of all problems

It is a generic tool
Which for about 95% of people will do what they want 95% of the time
There will always be specifics where specific custom software will do better than
Excel
It is the commonness of Excel which means that I can send a model to you and it
will work , most of the time, that is its strength, of course combined with its flexility
in being able to be adapted to suit most needs

Reply

thundom says:
July 22, 2013 at 6:54 am

Hi Hui,
You are right.

But,

for the business and individual, who spend too much resource on Excel to
meet their BI requirements and other processing requests.

Should they open their eyes to other ways to do it, in this age? Especially for
many people try too much time to process stuff with thousands lines of
macro programming.

It is just as when human being created gun fire, the martial arts would not be
that effective.

Ppl need to be prodent when they choose their solution.

Reply

Eugene Terekhov says:

August 19, 2013 at 11:12 am

Hi guys, I just came across your conversation. I have an example of BI

vs. Excel stuff. Here in Russia there is an ERP-system called "1C". It

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outperform Excel in day-to-day routine.

4. Tris says:
July 1, 2013 at 8:07 pm

Hi Chandoo, thanks for publishing great Excel information. Pardon the ignorance as I havent used
Data Model nor PowerPivot. But having seen your video clip on PowerPivot, how does Data Model
differ from PowerPivot - the "process" seems familiar? Have a great day! And Excel to new
heights! Regards,

Reply

Oz says:
July 1, 2013 at 9:53 pm

@Tris, one main difference is that Data Model is part of Excel Home Premium. You've got
to upgrade to ProPlus to get PowerPivot and Power View.

Reply

Chandoo says:
July 3, 2013 at 11:55 am

Also, keep in mind that Data model only lets you combine tables. If you want to create
powerful measures (for example show % improvement over last year sales), then
PowerPivot is the way to go. For a tour of PowerPivot, visit http://chandoo.org/wp/2013
/01/21/introduction-to-power-pivot/

Reply

5. Nolberto says:
July 1, 2013 at 8:51 pm

Excellent posting, some pride themselves for having sheets with thousands of formulas or
complicated formulas, but in the end the important thing is to work as little as possible.

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People survived more than 300 years with slide rules and paper. No PowerPivot for the
Wright Brothers.

Reply

6. koi says:
July 2, 2013 at 3:42 pm

hi chandoo,

i added 2 column into sales, 1st column vlookup customer ID to CUST sheet to get the male or
female, then 2nd column vlookup Product ID to Product sheet to get the product name, then
after that i make pivot table out of sales sheet.

but then the result is really different from yours

the purposes is just try to do the vlookup vs add to data model to see if they get same result

thanks

Reply

Chandoo says:
July 3, 2013 at 11:57 am

Hi Koi,

We are using gender vs. category in the report. Can you try with that? I am sure the
results will match.

Reply

7. koi says:
July 2, 2013 at 3:45 pm

ups sorry, didnt see that you're filtering using slicer..then it is good now the result are same with
less effort

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Reply

Chandoo says:
July 3, 2013 at 11:58 am

Hi there,

You can create a Star schema for sure. Snow-flake is possible too. As long as all
relationships are one to many (or one to one) anything is possible.

Reply

Nestavaro says:
January 30, 2019 at 5:20 pm

What if customer.profession change its value after sometime?

Supposed we have monthly data for Sales. What if one customer is a doctor in Feb,
then a pilot in October, for example?

How to build data model for such that situation?

Thank you.

Reply
9. Blog Posts of the Week (30th June'13 - 06th July'13) - The South Asia MVP Blog - Site Home -
TechNet Blogs says:
July 8, 2013 at 2:10 pm

[...] Introduction to Excel 2013 Data Model & Relationships [...]

Reply

10. Raghavendra Shanbog says:

July 9, 2013 at 6:44 am

Hello ,
I find this option similar to that of MS Access.
In MS Access as well we have relationship concept and once you create a relationship, you can

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11. Istiyak Shaikh says:

July 11, 2013 at 6:21 pm

What is star schema and snow flake.??? Can we have next article on that if it is useful for us???

Reply

12. Roberto says:

July 12, 2013 at 1:48 am

Hi there, can anyone help? I tried testing this out in Excel using two tables. When I go to the
Data tab the Relationships button does not appear at all. I am using Microsoft version
14.0.4760.1000, Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010. Does this version have this capability?
Or is there an add-in required?

Reply
13. VBA Serenity | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online says:
March 31, 2014 at 10:14 am

[…] even a layperson can perform if they have the almighty Excel 2010 and PowerPivot installed.
Or Excel 2013′s Data Model, which lets you mash up data from Excel Tables and serve them up
directly as PivotTables with not a […]

Reply

14. Chandeep Chhabra says:

September 2, 2014 at 12:25 pm

Chandoo/Hui,

The dates grouping feature does not seem to work in Data Model. Is that true or am I making a
mistake somewhere?

Reply

15. Jay says:

January 7, 2016 at 4:48 pm

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16. Aslam says:

June 13, 2016 at 6:57 pm

Please explain the difference between data model and power pivot, the functions of both of them
are different and similar
thanks

Reply
17. Excel and big data - www.office.com/setup says:
November 25, 2016 at 8:08 am

[…] Handling large volumes of data in Excel—Since Excel 2013, the “Data Model” feature in Excel
has provided support for larger volumes of data than the 1M row limit per worksheet. Data Model
also embraces the Tables, Columns, Relationships representation as first-class objects, as well as
delivering pre-built commonly used business scenarios like year-over-year growth or working
with organizational hierarchies. For several customers, the headroom Data Model is sufficient for
dealing with their own large data volumes. In addition to the product documentation, several of
our MVPs have provided great content on Power Pivot and the Data Model. Here are a couple of
articles from Rob Collie and Chandoo. […]

Reply

18. Bernadette Savage says:

December 20, 2016 at 6:45 pm

I need to use a slicer to allow a user to select vendor by name. In the background, I need to
obtain the vendor ID to link to multiple datasets where the name may not be spelled
consistently. Any advice?

Reply

Hui... says:
December 21, 2016 at 9:40 am

@Bernadette

You can use the technique described here:

http://chandoo.org/wp/2016/05/11/apply-conditional-formatting-using-slicers/

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I can even create Cube Formulas on the Data model after I've inserted the pivot table.
Just for the fun of it, I tried to see if I could do Cube Formulas without creating the pivot table in
advance. I can define Cube members, but it seems as if the measure part is playing tricks on me.

I can't get a Cube Value for Chocolates sold to Male customers.

With the Pivot created the formula looks like this (and works fine)
=CUBEVALUE("ThisWorkbookDataModel";"[Customer].[Gender].&[Male]";"[Product].
[Category].&[Chocolates]";"[Measures].[Sum of Quantity]")

Does anyone know how I can solve this, or am I asking the impossible?

Reply

20. Kwabena Anaafi says:

September 15, 2018 at 11:49 pm

I want to see the video on this topic

Reply

21. nestavaro says:

February 1, 2019 at 2:41 am

What if customer.profession change its value after sometime?

Supposed we have monthly data for Sales. What if one customer is a doctor in Feb, then a pilot
in October, for example?

How to build data model for such that situation?

Thank you.

Reply

Chandoo says:
February 4, 2019 at 9:44 pm

In such case, you need to make relationships based on two columns. This kind of feature
is not supported in Excel. You can use Power Query to merge tables based on multiple

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Reply

23. faisal says:

November 20, 2019 at 3:02 pm

thanks chandooo your article is very helpfull for troubling peoples' especially in office
environment under boss pressure.

Reply

24. Ron says:

March 8, 2020 at 3:13 pm

Here is an introduction to PowerPivot.

The link above is broken

Reply

25. Venkatesh says:

November 3, 2020 at 5:30 pm

Hi. This has really taken my interest.. I have huge data tables to work with...and I use vlookup to
fetch certain data. I have different data in different sheets...

Like customer sales (customer code, product code,qty, piece rate, total amount, branch code)
data in one sheet
Branch details in another (branch code, branch address, state , region)
Customer Geographical Data in third sheet (region, region name)
Product details in fourth sheet (product code, product description and related)

Now I use a vlookup to get branch name, state and product name respectively into my main
sheet.

Now what I want is

customer code, product code,qty, piece rate, total amount, branch code) data in one sheet,
branch address, state , region, region name, product description

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