Assignment 4: Analyzing Data Cubes using Pivot Tables
Due: March 25th
You’ve been asked to help better understand sales patterns in DS’s Fine Foods Emporium. They sell a
variety of fine products, such as Gustaf's Knäckebröd, Pâté Chinois, and Maxilaku. Their motto is “Food
so good even we don’t know what it is!”
Specifically, you’ve been asked to answer a series of questions, which are listed in the table below. You
will perform the quantitative analysis to answer each of these questions. They can all be answered by
constructing pivot tables and pivot charts in Excel. The Excel spreadsheet “Food Emporium.xlsx” has
already been created for you. This is the single-table, joined data cube and is ready for analysis.
Here are some tips:
1) You won’t necessarily be able to answer more than one question using the same pivot table.
2) You won’t need to create additional measures. The data in the table is all the data you’ll need. But
you may apply formulas to the results of your Pivot Table analysis (for example, see problem #4).
3) To answer some of these questions, you may need to perform several steps. In other words, you
may need to create one pivot table, and then use that information to filter data in a second pivot
table.
4) In the spreadsheet, “Full Price” is the base price of the line item without a discount. The “Extended
Price” is the discounted price offered to the customer (i.e., what they actually pay). The “Total
Discount” is the difference between the Full Price and the Extended Price.
Guidelines
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Please print out and hand in a hard copy.
You must include your name and TUid at the top of the document.
If you do not follow these instructions, your assignment will be counted late.
Evaluation
Your submission will be graded based on whether the answers provided for each question are correct.
Questions (check both pages – make sure you answer them all!)
1. What are the five best-selling products based on quantity sold?
2. What are the five worst selling products based on quantity sold?
3. What’s the average order price?
(HINT: Look at the extended price by order and then use the Excel AVERAGE function)
4. What is the average quantity sold per order?
(HINT: Look at the total quantity by order and then use the Excel AVERAGE function)
5. Are our sales seasonal (look at total sales in dollars)?
6. If so, what is the nature of the seasonality?
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When do sales (in dollars) go up/go down?
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What is changing – number of orders or the size of the orders?
7. Based on the data we have, does our discount policy appear to help sales?
8. What are the most heavily discounted products (by percentage discount)?
9. Who are our five best customers based on total sales (i.e., Extended Price)?
10. What are the five most popular (quantity sold) products among our five best customers?
(HINT: Apply a filter to include only the five best customers found in #9)