What Is a Pivot Table Timeline?
A Timeline is a special type of filter that’s available when your Pivot Table includes a Date field. Unlike traditional slicers or dropdown filters, Timelines are designed specifically to work with dates, providing a user-friendly slider interface that lets you filter your Pivot Table data across time periods.
They’re commonly used in dashboards, monthly or quarterly reporting, sales trend analysis, and anything involving time-based metrics.
How to Insert a Timeline in Excel
Inserting a Timeline is simple:
- Click anywhere inside your Pivot Table
- Go to the PivotTable Analyze tab
- Click Insert Timeline
- Choose the field that represents dates in your data
- Click OK and your Timeline will appear on the worksheet.
Once inserted, you can drag the slider to select a specific date range or click the dropdown to change the time level (e.g., from Months to Quarters).
Connecting One Timeline to Multiple Pivot Tables
If you have multiple Pivot Tables based on the same data source, you can control them all with a single Timeline. Here’s how:
- Click the Timeline to activate it
- Click the Timeline > Report Connections button
- Tick the Pivot Tables you want the Timeline to control
- Click OK and all selected Pivot Tables will now respond to the same Timeline filter
This is great for creating interactive dashboards that update multiple charts and tables at once.
Watch the Demo
If you’d like to see Timelines in action, including how to set one up, link it to multiple Pivot Tables, and customise the look, check out the video below!
Download a copy of the file(s) used in this video: https://share.zight.com/P8uzE5PP