Wow, this discussion group is awesome!

I use PivotTables to show data by month. Often, I take data out of SQL
datasources, and use only data that is relevant for the pivot table.

For example, I may want to show the last twelve months totals for a
particular category of sales. To do this, I use a filter so the PivotTable
only grabs data where the dates are in a range over the last twelve months --
this eliminates the problem of "Grouping" dates where there may be an absense
of the date (Excel apparently won't let you group dates if one date is blank)

My problem: My IT guys connected me to a new datasource (data source type
is acronym and is not coming to me now, but is 4 letters, and begins with
"M). This datasource is an ACT! database. It does not let me filter out the
"Empty" dates, so when I go to group the data by month, Excel tells me I
can't group it -- it doesn't like the fact that at least one of the date
fields in the database is "blank".

Suggestions? If I'm unclear, let me know! I would forever be indebted to
you if you have this answer.