If you have never used a pivot table before, this article will get you to a place where the templates and the custom builder make sense. The idea is straightforward — a pivot table takes a long list of records and groups it into a small grid you can read in one glance.

The idea, in one sentence

A pivot table answers the question "how many of X happened, broken down by Y?"

Pick a thing to count or sum. Pick a label to put on the rows. Pick a label to put on the columns. The pivot table fills in every cell with the count or sum where those two labels meet.

The four areas

Every pivot table has four "areas" that you drag fields into:

  • Row Fields — a field whose unique values become the rows of the table. Example: Crew Member → one row per crew member.
  • Column Fields — a field whose unique values become the columns. Example: Incident Date (month) → one column per month.
  • Data Fields — what gets counted or summed in each cell. Example: PCR ID, Count → the cell shows how many PCRs that crew member ran in that month.
  • Filter Fields — a field used to narrow the data without showing it as a row or column. Example: Service Type = 911 → only emergency runs counted.

Most useful pivots have one Row, one Column, and one Data field. Adding more nests them.

Worked example 1: PCRs per provider per month

You want to know how busy each crew member has been month by month. The right pivot is:

  • Row: Crew Member
  • Column: Incident Date (grouped by month)
  • Data: PCR Count

Reading the result: each row is one provider; each column is one month. The number where they meet is "this provider ran this many PCRs that month." Sort the rightmost column descending to find your top runner this month; sort the row totals to find your busiest provider for the whole window.

This is the PCR Volume — Provider × Month template. Open Builder → Pivot Templates → PCR Volume — Provider × Month to see it pre-wired.

Worked example 2: medications by provider

You want to know which crew members are giving each medication. The right pivot is:

  • Row: Medication
  • Column: Crew Member
  • Data: Dose Count

Reading the result: each row is one medication. Each column is one crew member. The cell is "this provider gave this many doses of this drug." A row that is mostly zeros except for one or two providers is unusual — could be a paramedic-only drug given by someone who is not paramedic-credentialed (a problem) or just a low-volume drug (not). The shape tells you which to investigate.

This is the Medication × Provider template.

Worked example 3: a custom one — disposition mix per service type

The Disposition Mix report shows two pies side by side. A pivot table can show the same data in one grid, which is sometimes more useful. Build it from scratch:

  1. From the Builder landing page, scroll to Custom Pivot and click the PCR Reports source.
  2. Pick a date field (typically Incident Date) and a range.
  3. Drag Transport Disposition into the Row area.
  4. Drag Service Type into the Column area.
  5. Drag any field (e.g. PCR ID) into the Data area; the default summary is Count.

You now have a grid where each row is a disposition (Treated & Released, Transported, Cancelled, Refusal, etc.) and each column is a service type (911 Emergency, Interfacility, Standby, Scheduled). The cell is "how many calls ended this way for this kind of call?" — much easier to read than two separate pies.

Picking the right shape

Two rules of thumb:

  • Categorical fields go in Rows and Columns. Names, types, dispositions, statuses, months — anything that has a small-to-medium number of distinct values.
  • Numeric fields go in the Data area. Response times, mileage, dose counts, dollar amounts. Right-click the data field to switch the summary type from Count to Sum, Average, Min, or Max.

If you put a numeric field (like response time in seconds) in the Row area, you get one row per unique value — useless. If you put a categorical field (like Crew Member) in the Data area, the pivot does not know what to do with it.

Tips

  • Right-click any cell → Show Details to see the underlying rows that produced that cell's number. Useful for verifying suspicious cells.
  • Drag the same field into Data twice if you want both Count and Sum of it side by side.
  • Stick to one Row and one Column until the table is doing what you want — then stack a second Row to nest groupings (e.g. Provider then Month within Provider).
  • Save the pivot from the toolbar. Saved pivots can be scheduled for delivery, just like saved reports — see Scheduled reports.

Where to look next