EXCEL TOPIC ASSIGNMENT

You are managing the data for a moderately-sized business which primarily sells physical
products. You have been asked to review some sales history in the past few years and to answer a
select few questions regarding the business’ product offerings. The answers you provide will be
used to help the business decide to either expand, shrink, or maintain their product range in the
coming years.

Your manager has asked you to use PivotTables to facilitate analysis of the data. The
business follows standard data-storing methods, such as splitting their data into multiple tables
for ease of access and ease of storage. Therefore, you think to yourself that working with a data
model would be the best approach to examine all of the tables simultaneously. A description of the
data can be found on the last page of this document.

I. PREPARING THE TABLES

a. You know that to work with a data model, you will need to create data tables.
b. For each worksheet in the data file, transform the range into a data table by
inserting a table. You may find the use of keyboard shortcuts to be helpful (CTRL+T
on Windows to insert a table).
c. You also know that naming tables is standard practice in working with data models.
For each table that you have created, name it the same as the worksheet it is on (i.e.
“Orders” worksheet should contain the Orders table).
d. Navigate to the Products table. There is a column for the cost of each product
(UnitCost) and the price of each product (UnitPrice), but there is no column for the
margin of each unit.
i. Create a new column in the Products table called UnitMargin.
ii. Calculate the margin of each product with a subtraction formula. Use cell
references where possible.
iii. The column should fill automatically. If it doesn’t, find the little green square
in the bottom-right corner of the cell with the formula and double-click on it.
e. Navigate to the Orders table. We will want to find the margin for each product as it
has been sold.
i. Create a new column in the Orders table called ProductMargin.
ii. Use VLOOKUP to find the corresponding UnitMargin for each product sold in
the Orders table.
iii. The column should fill automatically. If it doesn’t, find the little green square
in the bottom-right corner of the cell with the formula and double-click on it.
II. PREPARING THE DATA MODEL
a. Enable PowerPivot if it is not enabled already (Data tab > Manage Data Model >
“Enable”).
b. Add each table in your workbook to the data model. There are 6 tables in total.

IIMT2601 Management Information Systems

2024-2025
 c. Navigate to the diagram view of your model in PowerPivot.
d. Switch to the diagram view and establish the relationships in your data model.
(Note: without this step, you will not be able to insert a complete PivotTable,
and it will be very difficult to proceed with the rest of the assignment).
i. When establishing relationships, make certain the fields you connect share
the same name. Otherwise, it will result in a faulty relationship.
ii. In total, there will be five (5) relationships between your tables.
iii. Every table will have at least one (1) relationship. It is okay for tables to have
more than one (1) relationship simultaneously.
III. EDITING THE DATA MODEL
a. Switch back to the data view and navigate to your Orders table in PowerPivot.
b. On the table, we can see how much margin each product is earning, but we don’t
know the margin for each order.
i. On the Orders table in PowerPivot, create a new calculated column called
OrderMargin.
ii. Identify and type in a formula to populate the OrderMargin column based on
the product margin for each order and the quantity of items purchased in
each order.
c. Create a new calculated measure called “Total Margin”. Have this measure
calculate the total margin for the entire business.
d. Create a new calculated measure called “Average Margin”. Have this measure
calculate the average margin for the entire business.
e. Format both of these measures as numbers with two (2) decimal places in
PowerPivot.
IV. ANALYZING THE DATA WITH A PIVOTTABLE
a. After creating and formatting the measures, close PowerPivot and navigate to the
worksheet containing your Orders table.
b. Insert a PivotTable with the entire data model as the PivotTable data source. Place
the PivotTable on a new worksheet.
c. Drag and drop fields from relevant tables to structure your PivotTable.
V. ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS
a. Use your data analysis skills and knowledge of working with PivotTables to answer
the questions on the “INPUT ANSWERS HERE” worksheet.
i. For some questions, USE THE DROPDOWN MENU TO SELECT YOUR
ANSWER. YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO INPUT ANY OTHER VALUE
OTHER THAN THE VALUES IN THE DROPDOWN LIST.
ii. For some questions, you will input a value into the cell. For these values,
round your answer to TWO DECIMAL PLACES (e.g. 303.169 -> 303.17).

IIMT2601 Management Information Systems

2024-2025
Orders
- OrderID – the order number assigned to a particular order
- OrderDate – the date an order was purchased
- DeliveryDate – the date an order was delivered, if empty, then same-day delivery was made
- CustomerID – the ID number of the customer who made the order
- StoreID – the store ID of the store who received the order
- ProductID – the product ID of the product that was purchased
- Quantity – the quantity of product purchased

Products
- ProductID – the ID number assigned to a particular product
- ProductName – the name of the product
- Brand – the brand which produces the product
- Color – the color of the product
- SubcategoryID – the ID of the subcategory the product belongs to
- UnitCost – the cost of manufacturing one unit of the product
- UnitPrice – the price charged to the customer for one unit of the product

Categories
- CategoryID – the ID number assigned to a particular category
- CategoryName – the name of the category

Subcategories
- SubcategoryID – the ID number assigned to a particular subcategory
- SubcategoryName – the name of the subcategory
- CategoryID – the ID of the category that the subcategory belongs to

Stores
- StoreID – the ID number assigned to a particular store
- StoreCountry – the country the store is located in
- State – the state the store is located in
- SquareMeters – the area of the store, in square meters
- OpenDate – the date the store opened

Customers
- CustomerID – the ID number assigned to a particular customer
- Gender – the gender of the customer
- Name – the name of the customer
- City – the city the customer lives in
- StateCode – the abbreviation for the state the customer lives in
- State – the state the customer lives in
- ZipCode – the zip code of the state the customer lives in
- CustomerCountry – the country the customer is from
- Birthday – the customer’s birthday

IIMT2601 Management Information Systems

2024-2025