Pivot charts: all parameters disappear when refreshing

[momcaro]

I am working with Excel 2013.
I have a table of data (actual table) and off of it, I made a bunch of pivot charts (about 10). I keep on tweaking my table, adding new columns to it to slice my data further.
After adding a couple of such columns, I went in to refresh my pivot charts and while it gives me the newly created fields in my field list (yay!) it delete all my pivot tables, leaving only my filters...
I have attached a couple of screenshots of what happens. I'm now stumped if I do not want to recreate all my charts (I don't). Please help!
Thank you.

 

[Luke M]

Your column names appear to have changed. E.g., in pic with charts, uses field "Overall team". In new pic, it's "Overall team (hard coded)".

You'll want to keep the same column (field) name.

So, in short:
1. Start with file with charts working
2. Add new columns, don't change names of columns which are used in PivotCharts
3. Refresh PTs

 

[momcaro]

Thank you Luke, that makes sense... So no way to rename my columns without messing up my PT, huh? I guess I'll insert comments instead then.
Thanks again!

 

[Luke M]

Correct. Has to do with the fact that the PT isn't actively looking at the data source all the time.

Now, the other option is that you can change the name in the PT w/o changing the data source. Assuming the PT is what the end user sees, this might be a viable solution.
http://blog.contextures.com/archives/2009/05/04/renaming-a-pivot-table-value-field/

 

[momcaro]

Good to know. I was trying to help my co-workers who will update some data in the table. Thanks for all the help!