Click OK; Select Labels in Pivot Table When you try to group dates in an Excel  pivot table, or other pivot table items, you might get a pivot table error, “Cannot group that selection.” In Excel 2010, and earlier versions, that error was usually caused by blank cells in your source data, or text in the number or date columns. If you checked that box, you won’t be able to group any items in the pivot table. Setting up the Data Unfortunately, it seems that if you check this option, you will not be able to group any fields and you will always get the "Cannot group that selection" error. The pivot table is a user-friendly spreadsheet tool in excel which allows us to summarize, grouping, perform mathematical operations like SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, etc. For solutions to grouping error in Normal Pivot Tables, see the Pivot Table Grouping page on my Contextures website. 3. He says other grouping still doesn't work in … Pivot Table group dates by month cannot group that selection A very frustrating aspect of PivotTables is where you receive a message that Pivot Table group dates by month cannot group that selection. You can manually select text items in a pivot table field, and group the selected items. Posts: 12 1. You can also read about why this feature was added, and watch a date grouping video. Thoroughly covers Power Pivot and Power Query, Covers business intelligence and OLAP features, Simple, easy, understandable, 2-page lessons, Available as both printed books and e-Books, Used by schools, colleges and universities, Available for 365, 2019, 2016 and Mac versions. Why are the sort and filter options greyed out? The pivot tabe grouping feature will not work if there is any non data or blank in the date column of the source data. Problem Grouping Pivot Table Items. It doesn't matter even if you filter them out thru slicers / report filters. Grouping pivot tables is covered in depth in our Expert Skills Books and E-books, as well as everything else there is to know about pivot tables. For example, group order dates by year and month, or group test scores in bands of 10. Here is a Pivot Table: Cannot group that selection Reply LinkBack: Thread Tools: Search this Thread: Display Modes #1 February 20th 09, 03:16 AM posted to microsoft.public.excel.misc Jeff. 2. Cannot Group on this selection. This is not helpful. Note: The time grouping feature is new in Excel 2016. Select a cell in the pivot table, and on the Ribbon, click the Options tab. The smallest score and largest score are extracted and entered into the Starting at and Ending at boxes separately. Notice that in Excel 2016 (the version that I am using) it will automatically Group the Order Date into Years & Quarters:. external usenet poster : First recorded activity by ExcelBanter: Dec 2006. To automatically group a numeric field, first select a cell in the field, then click the Group Selection button on the ribbon. Group by range in an Excel Pivot Table If you specify the date field as row label in a pivot table, you can easily group dates by Week, month, quarter, etc. In the Pivot Table “Start Date” is a Column Field. For example, group order dates by year and month, or group test scores in bands of 10. This video shows how to group dates by month and years, and how to group text items manually. Any idea why? Reply LinkBack: Thread Tools: Search this Thread: Display Modes #1 November 9th 05, 03:16 PM les8 Posts: n/a "Cannot Group That Selection" in a Pivot Table. If there are any cells in the date field of the source data that contain text or errors, then the group feature will NOT work. Keep the OLAP-based pivot table too, and you’ll have two pivot tables based on the same data, using different pivot caches. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. For Excel 2013 and later, there's another thing that can prevent you from grouping -- the Excel Data Model. Figure 1- How to Group Pivot Table Data by Year. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A pivot table was created and when I tried to group the no of days (Row Labels A4 to A10),it show me "cannot group that selection. He also explains that the only exception to this is that for Excel 2016 they fixed the ability to group dates. Next, right-click on your grouping field (row label) and select group. Excel leaves it up to you to find out what the problem is. Here’s what can happen: If you added the source data to the data model,  you created an OLAP-based Power Pivot, instead of a traditional (normal) pivot table. The Grouping dialog box pops up, with the lowest and highest numbers in your range already selected. I have done all the suggestions I've ever know to do in my data which are: - i removed ALL blank entries - i did the "text to columns" trick to convert all data to text, then applied appropriate formatting for the data type. The reason for this seems to be how Microsoft Excel sees the data. Generally, you can automatically group Items in a Pivot Table in the following 6 easy steps: Right-click on a Field that is suitable for automatic grouping. If you’re seeing the “Cannot group that selection” error message when trying to group pivot tables, it is most likely because your data is invalid in some way. STEP 3: Go to Home > … Ensure that the date column is filled up with correct date entries, refresh the pivot and then try to Group. Pivot tables cannot group number columns if raw data has either blanks or text values in that column. Right click and click on Group. As of Excel 2013, when you create a pivot table, you are given the option, "Add this data to the Data Model" in the "Create PivotTable" dialogue box. For example, you can’t create a calculated field or calculated item. When you add a date field to your Pivot Table, Excel automatically groups the dates into a hierarchy, such as years and months. Start Date is also used as the data field (Count of Start Date). Apart from the mathematical operations, the Pivot table got one of the best features, i.e., filtering, which allows us to extract defined results from our data. pivot table cannot group that selection I cannot get a column of data to group using a Pivot table. There are written steps below the video. Re: Pivot Table - Date - Group by Month does not work @Detlef Lewin I was trying to apply your solution, when suddenly the pivot table itself divided my date into months: The problem is, I have no idea how I did this. Thank you – you had the exact answer I needed. Your email address will not be published. Excel displays a contextual menu. Once grouped together, you can drag the group to your Pivot Table and start your analysis. You will get a pop-up window to group dates. ExcelBanter » Excel Newsgroups » Excel Discussion (Misc queries) > pivot table cannot group selection Reply LinkBack: Thread Tools: Search this Thread: Display Modes #1 August 18th 07, 10:46 AM posted to microsoft.public.excel.misc Marion. This also happens when you try other groupings. The data cache of a PivotTable report is an area of internal memory on your computer that is used by Microsoft Office Excel to store the data for the report. Go to the pivot table, right click any score in the Row Labels column, and select Group from the context menu. If you are already using pivot table grouping by numbers or date but you want to learn how to group by text fields then this article is for you. Next, right-click on your grouping field (row label) and select group. Go to the pivot table, right click any score in the Row Labels column, and select Group from the context menu. Next to *By*, define the range. Let’s group the quantity field into larger buckets. One of our customers sent us some example data that was causing this problem: If you look carefully you’ll see that one of the dates is the 29th of February 2018, which isn’t a valid date. I tried to group the percentages but gives me the Error Cannot Group That Selection. Full feature free trial 30-day, no credit card required! In his online course, Building BI with Pivot Tables, Ken Puls, Microsoft Excel MVP explains that if you build your pivot table from the data model, grouping won't work. For example, if you had a column for dates for Date of Birth and within that column somewhere there was only one blank cell, Excel would not allow us to group … STEP 2: To check where our error occurred, go to the data table and highlight the column that contains our dates. The Field List Button is a toggle button. A quick way to tell if your pivot table is OLAP-based is to check the Ribbon: It’s not just grouping that is prevented In OLAP-based pivot tables. If it’s dimmed out, your pivot table is the traditional type, If the command is active, your pivot table is OLAP-based, Create a second pivot table from the source data. ExcelBanter » Excel Newsgroups » Excel Discussion (Misc queries) > "Cannot Group That Selection" in a Pivot Table. Result: Note: to change the name of a group (Group1 or Group2), select the name, and edit the name in the formula bar. 2. You can run into pivot table grouping problems in any version of Excel. Much appreciated. When you create a pivot table, there’s a check box to “Add this data to the Data Model”. Hello, I wonder if anyone can help with a pivot table issue I'm having. This article explains how to fix the problem. In a pivot table, you can group dates, number and text fields. I've created a pivot table and am trying to group the rows on the far left column such that the numbers between 1-1,9 are grouped together, 2-2.9 are grouped together, 3-3.9 are grouped together etc. Generally, you can automatically group Items in a Pivot Table in the following 6 easy steps: Right-click on a Field that is suitable for automatic grouping. If you want grouping, you’ll need a pivot table with its source data NOT added to the data model. In the Pivot Table “Start Date” is a Column Field. He says other grouping still doesn't work in … Sometimes even after you have fixed the issue eg entering a date in a blank cell, Excel still won’t let you Group, even after you refresh the data. The check for data added to the data model was checked to allow count on distinct entries – I removed dups and did not check that box. 4. Of course yes! In the pivot table, select Beans, Broccoli, Carrots, Mango and Orange. Re: Pivot Table Error: 'CANNOT GROUP THAT SELECTION' Hi I am struggling to come up with a solution as to how to create dynamic charts for the set of data I have. Hi, whenever you group some rows, excel creates a parent - child hierarchy (See the picture above). STEP 1: Insert a new Pivot table by clicking on your data and going to Insert > Pivot Table > New Worksheet or Existing Worksheet STEP 2: In the ROWS section put in the Order Date field. But if you’re using Excel 2013 or later, there’s a new reason for the error message, that might affect you. Below are the steps you need to follow to group dates in a … If Enable Selection is OFF, click it to activate the feature. … 4. As you can see, the error message doesn’t tell you WHY you can’t group the items. This lets you quickly see subtotals for a specific set of items in your pivot table. This is not helpful. Message 2 of 6 Learn more about pivot table grouping, and get a workbook with sample file that you can use for testing. 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