Build Matrix Dashboards with pivot_table in Pandas

Question

Given sales records with `region`, `category`, and `sales`, create a pivot table showing total sales across regions (rows) and categories (columns), including Grand Total margins.

Accepted Answer

Optimal Solution:
import pandas as pd

pivot_df = pd.pivot_table(
    df,
    values='sales',
    index='region',
    columns='category',
    aggfunc='sum',
    fill_value=0,
    margins=True,
    margins_name='All'
).reset_index()

Technical Explanation:
`pd.pivot_table` reshapes the data. `fill_value=0` replaces missing combinations with 0. `margins=True` calculates row and column grand totals.

region	category	sales
North	Electronics	1000
North	Fashion	500
South	Electronics	1200

region	Electronics	Fashion	All
North	1000	500	1500
South	1200	0	1200
All	2200	500	2700