Jumping to a PivotTable’s Source Data

I use Ctrl+[ all the time to go to the precedents of the ActiveCell. The SourceData for a PivotTable isn’t a precedent, but wouldn’t it be nice if there was a shortcut to go there? Yes, it would.

Until now, if I wanted to see the SourceData for a PivotTable, I would use Alt, J, T, I, D to activate the Ribbon control for changing the source data (PivotTable Tools – Options – Change Data Source – Change Data Source). That would open the Change PivotTable Data Source dialog. The focus on that dialog is a RefEdit control so Excel navigates to the data. I don’t actually want to change it, though, so I hit ESC and it takes me back to the PivotTable. But I make a note of where it is and I use Ctrl+G or simply navigate to where it is.

I decide to repurpose Ctrl+[ to do the deed.

First, I recorded a macro to see what happens when I press Ctrl+[. That became the first line after the error handler. Rather than doing a bunch of checking to see whether the ActiveCell was in a PivotTable, whether the PivotTable source was a Range, and a bunch of other stuff that I can’t even predict, I just attempt to Goto the SourceData. If it works, then it was possible. If there’s some reason I can’t, it just fails silently.

Model business dependencies in an Excel worksheet

The Civilization game dependency tree
How to build a dependency tree when there is no obvious connection between the business model and an Excel model.

A long time ago I spend a lot of time playing the strategy game Civilization. For those not familiar with the game, one of its features was “advances.” Each advance brought with it certain additional capabilities and benefits. Of course, there was a requirement before one could acquire an advance, particularly a set of pre-requisites. For example, pre-requisites for the “Navigation” advance were the “Seafaring” and the “Astronomy” advances. In turn, the Seafaring advance required one to already know “Pottery” and “Map Making”.

I created an Excel worksheet that let me use Excel’s Precedent arrows to understand the optimal path to specific advances as in Figure 1. The advances are shown in red and the benefit(s) of each advance are in black, blue and green. The Excel blue arrows show the pre-requisites for the Seafaring advance.

Figure 1

While the dated worksheet may be of limited value even to Civilization enthusiasts, the technique for creating the dependency tree is unique enough to be of value to Excel consumers. What makes it of value is that the game dependencies (in the context of work this would be the dependencies in the business model) had nothing to do with what Excel considers as dependencies! Consequently, to use Excel’s Trace Precedents feature I had to somehow map the model dependency into Excel formula dependencies.

For a version in a page by itself (i.e., not in a scrollable iframe as below) visit http://www.tushar-mehta.com/publish_train/xl_vba_cases/0908%20CIV%20game%20dependency%20tree.shtml

Tushar Mehta