Collapse Field in Pivot Table doesn't always work...

Question

Having trouble using the "Collapse Field" button in a pivot table.  

I swear I didn't have this problem before my company just recently switched over to Office 365 (we had Excel 2010, and now we have Excel 2016)

I will include a picture... it used to be that when I had one or two fields expanded,  if I clicked on a field that I wanted to be completely collapsed and then on the "collapse field" shortcut button, the entire pivot table would collapse down to that level.  So if I wanted the pivot table to be completely collapsed, I could just click on my highest level (year in this case) and the collapse field button and the pivot table would collapse to its most compact form.  Now, it seems some things will collapse this way, but others will not.  For instance, in the picture below, if I click on the Quarter and collapse field button, it will collapse down to Year + Quarter.  But if I click on the year with the collapse field button, it does nothing.  Interestingly, if I click on the year and the EXPAND field button (so now everything is expanded out as far as it will go) and THEN click the year and collapse field, it will collapse all. But that seems like going around your ear to get to your elbow (or however that saying goes...)

Answer 1

Hello Zixuan,

I seemed to find some success by simply dragging the date fields out of my field list and adding them back in... so technically, nothing changed, but somehow it fixed the problem... The Quarters are now nested under the years like they should be and the collapse field works on the year.  I don't understand what was wrong because when I dragged the items out and added them back in, I didn't change anything as far as the order, but for whatever reason, it seemed to work.  This is how my experience goes with Excel... things don't work and then they do and I never get to know what was wrong or why things changed... but since its working now, I don't think I will bother with the safe mode unless I run into the problem again.  Thank you for your suggestions.

Answer 2

Hi KimMT,

Thanks for your uploading. I have viewed the video.

To troubleshoot the issue, could you please provide the following information:

1.The screenshot for your Office version as below. Open any Office application such as Word, Excel, or Outlook. Go to File>Account.

2.The detailed version of your Windows. It's better to provide a screenshot like this:

3.Does the issue only occur with a particular file? What will happen if you create a new excel file with new data? If possible, could you please share a sample file via Private Message?

4.Please try to open Excel in Safe Mode to see if the issue persists.

For how to open Excel in Safe Mode, please refer to one of the following methods:

1.Press and hold the CTRL key and double-click the Excel shortcut. Click Yes when a window appears asking if you want to start the application in Safe Mode.

2.Right-click the Start button (lower-left corner) in Windows, and click Run.

In the Run box, type the command: excel /safe, and click OK.

Please let us know the status once you've tried the above steps.

Regards,

Zixuan

Answer 3

Hi KimMT,

Have you tried the above steps?

Regards,

Zixuan

Answer 4

Hi KimMT,

Glad to hear your issue is resolved.

Feel free to write us back or start a new thread if you have any other queries for Office 365 Business services.

Thanks,

Zixuan