Hello David.

Yes you can use queries that will make pivot tables like this (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13944417/mysql-convert-column-to-row-pivot-table).

When you make table like this, you will have to prepare a MySQL view (a stored query), which will return the data that you need, call it e.g. “view1” and then build a wpDataTabled based on a simple query like “SELECT * FROM view1″, because there is a chance that wpDataTable doesn’t work correctly with server-side processing, probably this is happening because wpDataTables server has problems with parsing of the query and building new queries dynamically (rarely happens, but does sometimes). 

Please note: Using this plugin feature requires at least a basic knowledge of SQL. It is assumed that you can create the table in some MySQL data manager (e.g., PHPMyAdmin, MySQL Workbench), and prepare an SQL query that will return the data you need. If you do not know how to use MySQL, refer to the “Create a MySQL-query-based table by generating a query to MySQL database” section. It will explain how to create complete tables or MySQL queries without this basic knowledge. Please be advised that preparing MySQL queries for you is not included in the plugin support.

I have not tried this, but the table should be editable.

Please let me know if this helps.

Best regards.