Have you ever encountered a situation where it takes forever for new data to be processed and loaded into your Google Sheets pivot table? Simply pressing the F5 key on your keyboard or the refresh button in your browser might do the trick. But what if it doesn’t work? It’s time to troubleshoot your pivot table and find a solution.
Use the Refresh Shortcut or Button
Sometimes, a quick refresh is all you need to update your pivot table with the latest data. Just press F5 or click the refresh button in your browser, and it might work like magic.
But what if it still doesn’t refresh? Don’t worry. We’ll guide you through the steps to troubleshoot your pivot table. Let’s find out why your pivot table isn’t refreshing and how to fix it.
Check the Data Range
When creating a pivot table, you need to specify the data range. It’s possible that new data is being added as new rows below the existing ones, causing the range to not cover them. Here’s how to check the data range:
Step 1: Hover your cursor over the pivot table.
Step 2: A Edit button will appear below. Click on it.
Step 3: The Pivot Table Editor panel will appear. The data range is displayed at the top of the panel.
How to Extend the Data Range
You can adjust the data range in two ways:
Method 1: Add rows to the range. For example:
- From A1:H628 to A1:H1000
The downside of this method is that you’ll have to adjust the range again when the number of rows exceeds 1000.
Method 2: Use the same example:
- From A1:H628 to A:H
The advantage of this method is that it accommodates additional rows. However, the downside is that extra rows with zeros (0) will appear in the pivot table.
How to Hide the Rows
You can hide the extra rows by applying a filter:
Step 1: Scroll down the Pivot Table Editor panel to find the Filter label.
Step 2: Click on the Add button and select the column you want to apply the filter to. In our example, it’s the date column.
Step 3: Click on the dropdown list. It lists the unique values detected in the selected column. Uncheck (Blanks) and click OK.
The empty rows are now removed.
Check the Filters
If your data range covers the added rows, but they still don’t appear in the pivot table after refreshing, it’s possible that your current filters have excluded the new rows. To check the filters, simply scroll through the Pivot Table Editor panel.
How to Adjust the Filter to Include the New Rows
Step 1: Click on the dropdown list of the filter.
Step 2: Check the unchecked rows. Click OK.
We hope this article has been helpful in understanding how to refresh a pivot table in Google Sheets. You might also like our articles on creating a pivot table in Google Sheets and adding a calculated field to a pivot table in Google Sheets.
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