Excel Video 379 has some ways to customize Timelines, some gotchas, and a powerful feature of Timelines. The customization options for Timelines are fairly straight-forward. The thing I spend extra time on in this Excel Video is two gotchas to watch out for. Slicers only show data in the Pivot Table, but Timelines show date ranges that aren’t in the Pivot Table. If you’re used to looking a Slicer to get a feel for the parameters of a Pivot Table, be careful with Timelines. The second gotcha is that Slicers always show the filters in effect in the Pivot Table, but a Timeline may not, depending on the date range of the filter and the time level of the Timeline.
The power of a Timeline comes when a Timeline is connected to multiple Pivot Tables. Timelines make it easy to change the time parameters of multiple Pivot Tables at once, just like Slicers. For many applications, it may be easier to check time periods on a Slicer instead of dragging a Timeline, but the next time you’re pivoting dates, give Timelines a try.
