Creating a PivotTable in Google Sheets - Formula Evaluation Walkthrough

Sample Data

Sales data showing products, regions, and sales amounts.

Cell	Value
A1	Product
B1	Region
C1	Sales
A2	Apples
B2	North
C2	100
A3	Apples
B3	South
C3	150
A4	Oranges
B4	North
C4	200
A5	Oranges
B5	South
C5	120

Formula Trace

QUERY(A1:C5, "select A, sum(C) group by A", 1)

Step 1: QUERY(A1:C5, "select A, sum(C) group by A", 1)

Cell Reference Map

    A       B       C
1 |Product| Region | Sales |
2 |Apples | North  | 100   |
3 |Apples | South  | 150   |
4 |Oranges| North  | 200   |
5 |Oranges| South  | 120   |

The formula references the range A1:C5 which contains product names, regions, and sales values.

Result

    E       F
1 |Product| sum   |
2 |Apples | 250   |
3 |Oranges| 320   |

The pivot-like result shows total sales summed by product.

Sheet Trace Quiz - 3 Questions

What does the QUERY function do in this formula?

A Filters sales data by region

B Groups sales by product and sums sales amounts

C Sorts products alphabetically

D Calculates average sales per region

Key Result

QUERY(range, "select column, sum(column) group by column", header_rows) groups data and sums values by a category column.