Declare the Grain Before You Pivot
Define table grain before building a Google Sheets Pivot table.
Pivot tables do not fix grain problems; they multiply them. Dimensional modeling asks for the grain before metrics. In Sheets, that means defining whether each row is a transaction, invoice line, customer-month, ticket, employee, or summary. Once the row meaning is explicit, the pivot can aggregate intentionally. Additive measures Amounts like invoice line value usually sum safely at the declared grain. Ratios, percentages, and account-level targets often do not. Dimensions Group by fields that describe the row. Do not group invoice lines by a repeated account-level field unless you know it will not duplicate a measure. Lookup discipline Keep one-row-per-entity…
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