Pivot Tables and Character Data Items?

[Jason Krug]

I have a Pivot Table of Sales Data.
The Pivot Table combines multiple sales records for a SKU Total.
We just added a new field, Item Status, which is a Character: A, D, S, C, etc.
All the records will have the same code.

You know where this is headed: I want to add Item Status to the Pivot Table?
Something like MAX, or MIN?

I generated the source data with a SQL query, which performs as expected:
MAX(Item Status) = 'A'.

In Excel, all versions of MAX and MAX return 0 for characters!
I have tried several combinations of CODE and CHAR in the Pivot Table. But
the Pivot Table 'SUM' the characters first, and I cannot get to the root
value, the ACTUAL character.

How could I do a MAX(Item Status) in an Excel Pivot Table?
Here is a simple example:
-DATA
DAY VALUE
1 A
2 B
3 C
4 D

-PIVOT TABLE
VALUE D

My current solution is to convert the Character to the ASCII CODE, and then
I can easily add it to the Pivot Table. I can then convert the ASCII CODE,
back to a CHARACTER when I generate a subsequent report from the Pivot Table
data. However the Pivot Table is not 'User Firendly' since it has ASCII
Numbers, rather than Characters.

Thanx!