Refresh All Pivot Tables at Once in Excel

If you refresh all the pivot tables at once, you can save a lot of time. Yes, that’s right. Just think like this.

You have ten pivot tables; it takes one second to refresh a single pivot table,

10 Pivots = 10 Seconds

Just like you can automate the creation of a pivot table, there are a few ways to use it to refresh it automatically.

In this post, I’m going to share with you 3-simple ways that you can use to refresh all the pivot tables and your time.

NOTE: Pivot Tables are one of the INTERMEDIATE EXCEL SKILLS.

Alert: Please note that these steps might vary slightly depending on your version of Excel.

Use the “Refresh All” Button to Update all the Pivot Tables in the Workbook

The “Refresh All” button is a simple and easy way to refresh all the pivot tables in a workbook with a single click.

• Select a Pivot Table: Navigate to one of the pivot tables in your workbook by clicking on any cell within it. This selection tells Excel that your next actions will be related to pivot tables.
• Go to the Pivot Table Analyze Tab: Look toward the top of your Excel window, where you’ll see a ribbon of different tabs. Click on the “PivotTable Analyze” tab. This tab only appears when a pivot table is selected.
• Find the Refresh Drop-Down: Within the “PivotTable Analyze” tab, look for the “Data” group. Here, you’ll find a button labeled “Refresh”.
• Choose to Refresh All: After clicking on “Refresh,” a drop-down menu will appear. This menu allows you to refresh the pivot table (selected) or all pivot tables in the workbook. To refresh all pivot tables, click on “Refresh All”.

Apart from this, you can also use the “Refresh All” button from Data Tab ➜ Connections ➜ Refresh All.

Automatically Refresh All the Pivots When You Open a Workbook

If you want to refresh all pivot tables when opening a workbook, you can use the following steps to make a one-time setup.

Below are the steps to auto-refresh all pivot tables while opening a workbook.

• To start, select any of the pivot tables from the workbook. You can choose a single cell within the pivot or select the entire pivot.
• The next step is to open the Pivot Table Options, which you can do by right-clicking and then clicking “Pivot Table Options…”.

• This will open a dialog box, and you need to go to the “Data” tab. And the data tab has a checkmark that says “Refresh Data When Opening the file.”.

Refresh Pivot Tables with a Keyboard Shortcut

Once your Excel workbook is open, you can refresh all pivot tables by pressing Ctrl + Alt + F5. This shortcut tells Excel to refresh pivot tables (All the Pivots).

When you press the keyboard shortcut, Excel will refresh pivot tables in the workbook. This may take a few moments, depending on the size of your pivot tables and your computer’s processing power.

VBA Code to Update All the Pivot Tables in a Single Click

Yes, you can use VBA to refresh all pivot tables as well.

All you have to do is use the below-mentioned code.

Sub RefreshCustomPivotTable()
With ActiveSheet
.PivotTables.RefreshTable
End With
End Sub

• With ActiveSheet: “ActiveSheet” is an object that refers to the currently active sheet in the Excel workbook. The With statement performs a series of statements on a specified object, in this case, the ActiveSheet.
• .PivotTables.RefreshTable: This line is the main action of the subroutine. It refreshes all pivot tables on the ActiveSheet. The period before PivotTables is necessary because it is being called within the With statement referring to the ActiveSheet.
• End With: This line marks the end of the With statement.

You can also assign this macro to a button for use with a single click.

Refresh Only Specific Pivot Tables with VBA

If you want to update some specific pivot tables, then you can use the VBA code below.

Sub RefreshCustomPivotTable()
With ActiveSheet
.PivotTables("PivotTable1").RefreshTable
.PivotTables("PivotTable2").RefreshTable
.PivotTables("PivotTable3").RefreshTable
.PivotTables("PivotTable4").RefreshTable
.PivotTables("PivotTable5").RefreshTable
End With
End Sub

Change the names of the pivot tables according to your workbook.

If you want to update these custom pivot tables every time you open a workbook, change the name of the macro to auto_open. 

Sub auto_open()

With ActiveSheet
.PivotTables("PivotTable1").RefreshTable
.PivotTables("PivotTable2").RefreshTable
.PivotTables("PivotTable3").RefreshTable
.PivotTables("PivotTable4").RefreshTable
.PivotTables("PivotTable5").RefreshTable
End With

End Sub

Understanding the Source Data in a Pivot Table

The source data in a pivot table refers to the original data on which the pivot table is based. This could be a range of cells, a named range, or an Excel table. The source data in the pivot table includes all the rows and columns you want to analyze.

More on Pivot Tables

1. Connect a Single Slicer with Multiple Pivot Tables
2. Automatically Update a Pivot Table Range
3. Group Dates in a Pivot Table
4. Pivot Table Timeline
5. Pivot Table using Multiple Files
6. Ranks in a Pivot Table 
7. Running Total in a Pivot Table