Page 619 - Excel 2013 All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 2: Filtering and Querying a Data List
In This Chapter
✓ Understanding how to filter and query a data list
✓ Using AutoFilter to filter out unwanted data
✓ Filtering a list with custom criteria
✓ Filtering a list on font color, fill color, or cell icons
✓ Using Database functions to compute statistics from records that match your filter criteria
✓ Performing external data queries with text files, web pages, and data files kept in other database sources
It’s one thing to set up a data list and load it with tons of data and quite another to get just the information that you need out of the list. How you go about extracting the data that’s important to you is the subject of this chapter. The procedure for specifying the data that you want displayed in an Excel data list is called filtering the data list or database. The procedure for extracting only the data that you want from the database or data list is called querying the database.
In addition to helping you with filtering and querying the data in your list, this chapter explains how you can use Excel’s Database functions to per- form calculations on particular numerical fields for only the records that meet the criteria that you specify. These calculations can include getting totals (DSUM), averages (DAVERAGE), the count of the records (DCOUNT and DCOUNTA), and the like.
Finally, this chapter introduces you to querying external databases in order to bring some of their data into the more familiar worksheet setting. These external databases that you query in Excel can be in other Windows database programs, such as Microsoft Access 2013 or in even more sophisticated, non-Windows database-management systems, such as those provided by SQL Analysis Services, Microsoft Windows Azure Marketplace, and OData Data connections.