12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup

HOME PRODUCTS DOWNLOADS SUPPORT FORUMS BLOG ABOUT US PURCHASE

Advanced VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple

Jul
criteria, two-way lookup
29 by Svetlana Cheusheva Excel, Excel functions, Excel tips, Excel Vlookup 157 Comments

In this second part of our Excel VLOOKUP tutorial, we will explore a few examples that will help
you harness the power of VLOOKUP to cope with the most challenging Excel tasks. The samples Excel: featured articles
imply that you know the basics of how this Excel function works. If not, you might want to start
How to use Excel COUNTIFS and
with Part 1 that explains VLOOKUP syntax and general usages.
COUNTIF with multiple criteria
Well, let's have a closer look at the following VLOOKUP formula examples: Using IF function: formulas for
numbers, text, dates, blank cells
How to do a vlookup with multiple criteria in Excel
Creating a drop down list: static,
Get 2nd, 3rd occurrence of the lookup value
dynamic, from another workbook
Get all duplicate occurrences of the lookup value
Excel formulas for conditional
Two-dimensional lookup (based on row and column values) formatting based on another cell
value
Multiple vlookups in one formula (nested vlookup)
COUNTIF in Excel - count if not
VLOOKUP and INDIRECT to dynamically pull data from different sheets
blank, greater than, duplicate or
unique

Excel vlookup with multiple criteria How to use Excel SUMIFS and
SUMIF with multiple criteria
The Excel VLOOKUP function is really great when it comes to searching across a database for a
Excel logical operators: equal to,
certain value. However, it lacks an important feature - its syntax allows for one lookup value only.
not equal to, greater than, less
But what if you want to look up by several conditions? The solution follows below : )
than

Nested IF formulas with multiple

Example 1. Look up with 2 different criteria
conditions, IFERROR, IFNA and
Suppose you have a list of orders and you want to find the Qty. based on 2 criteria - "Customer more
Name" and "Product". A complicating factor is that each customer ordered multiple products, as
you see in the table below:
Excel: VLOOKUP tutorial
VLOOKUP in Excel – tutorial with
formula examples

INDEX & MATCH functions in

Excel - a better alternative to
VLOOKUP

How to use VLOOKUP & SUM or

SUMIF functions in Excel

Excel VLOOKUP not working -

solutions for N/A, NAME and
VALUE errors

Outlook: featured articles

How to create and use e-mail
templates in Outlook
A usual VLOOKUP formula won't do in this scenario, because it returns the first found value
matching the lookup value you specify. So, if you want to know the quantity of "Sweets" ordered Remove duplicate emails in
by "Jeremy Hill" and you write the formula =VLOOKUP(B1,$A$5:$C$14,3,FALSE), it will Outlook 2010 and 2013 quickly
bring you "15" corresponding to "Apples" since this is the first match. and safely

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 1/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup

An easy workaround is creating an additional column that concatenates all the criteria you want, How to sync Google Calendar
the Customer and Product columns in this sample. Remember, the concatenated column should with Outlook
always be the left-most column in your lookup range because this is where Excel VLOOKUP
Merge duplicate contacts in
always searches for the lookup value.
Outlook
So, you add a helper column to your table and copy a formula like this =B2&C2 across that
column (or =B2&" "&C2 if you want to separate the concatenated values with a space to make
the data more readable).
Excel Excel add-ins
And then, you can use a simple VLOOKUP formula similar to this:
Excel charts Excel consolidation
=VLOOKUP("Jeremy Hill Sweets",$A$5:$C$14,3,FALSE) Excel duplicates
or
Excel formatting Excel fun
=VLOOKUP(B1,$A$5:$C$14,3,FALSE)
Excel functions
Where cell B1 contains your concatenated lookup value (lookup_value) and 3 is the number of Excel PivotTables Excel randoms
the column containing the data you want to find (col_index_num).
Excel tips Excel Vlookup

Merge data in Excel

Microsoft Office Microsoft Word
The best spent mo
new release Office 365 tips
I've ever spent!
Office fun Office news
Office tips Outlook
Outlook add-ins Outlook BCC
Outlook calendar Outlook duplicates

Outlook templates Outlook tips

PowerPoint Video

Sign in
Register
Example 2. Vlookup with 2 criteria from a different worksheet Log in
If you need to update your main table by pulling data from another table (different worksheet or
workbook), then you can concatenate the lookup values directly in the formula that you enter in
your main table.

The same as in the example above, you will need to add a helper column to your lookup table
with concatenated lookup values and this should be the left-most column of the lookup range.

So, your VLOOKUP formula may look like this:

=VLOOKUP(B2&" "&C2,Orders!$A&$2:$B$2,4,FALSE).

Where columns B and C contain the customer names and product names, respectively, and
Orders!$A&$2:$B$2 is your lookup table in another worksheet.

Tip. To make the formula easier-to-read, you can create a named range for the lookup table,
and your formula will get simplified to this: =VLOOKUP(B2&"
"&C2,Orders,4,FALSE)

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 2/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup

Note. For the formula to work, the left-most column of your lookup table must contain the
look up values concatenated exactly as in your lookup criteria. As you see in the screenshot
above, we concatenated values with a space in the lookup table, so we do the same in the
lookup criteria of the VLOOKUP formula (B2&" "&C2).

Also, please remember about Excel VLOOKUP's limit of 255 characters. The VLOOKUP function
cannot search for a lookup value containing more than 255 chars. So, keep this number in mind
and make sure the total length of your lookup criteria does not exceed this limit.

I agree that adding an additional column is not a very elegant solution and is not always
acceptable. You can actually do without the "helper column", but in this case you would need a far
more complex formula with a combination of INDEX and MATCH functions.

Download this sample (VLOOKUP with multiple criteria).

How to use VLOOKUP to get 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.

matching values
As you already know, Excel VLOOKUP can fetch only one matching value, more precisely, the first
found item. But what if there are several matches in your lookup array and you want to get the
2nd or 3rd occurrence? Moreover, what if you want to pull all matching values? The task sounds
quite intricate, but the solution does exist!

Suppose, you have customer names in one column and the products they purchased in another.
And now, you want to find the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th product purchased by a given customer.

The simplest way is to add a helper column before the Customer Names column and populate it
with the customer's name and occurrence number, e.g. "John Doe1", "John Doe2" etc. The
following COUNTIF formula does the trick (assuming that the customer names are in column B):

=B2&COUNTIF($B$2:B2,B2)

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 3/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup

After that, you can use a usual VLOOKUP formula to find the corresponding order. For example:

Find the 2nd product purchased by Dan Brown:

=VLOOKUP("Dan Brown2",$A$2:$C$16,3,FALSE)

Find the 3rd product purchased by Dan Brown:

=VLOOKUP("Dan Brown3",$A$2:$C$16,3,FALSE)

Naturally, you can enter a cell reference instead of text in the lookup value, as you see in the
screenshot below:

If you are looking for the 2nd occurrence only, you can do without the helper column by creating a
more complex VLOOKUP formula:

=IFERROR(VLOOKUP($F$2,INDIRECT("$B$"&
(MATCH($F$2,Table4[Customer Name],0)+2)&":$C16"),2,FALSE),"")

In the formula:

$F$2 - the cell with the customer name (it is constant, please notice the absolute cell
references);

$B$ - the "Customer Names" column;

Table4[Customer Name] - lookup column in the table or a lookup range;

$C16 - the last (bottom-left) cell of your lookup table.

Note. This formula finds the second matching value only. If you have to get other

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 4/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
occurrences, please proceed with the previous solution.

Download this sample (VLOOKUP to get 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. matching values).

If you want to get the list of all matching values, the VLOOKUP function cannot help, because it
can return only one value at a time, alas. But Excel's INDEX function can handle this scenario and I
will show you the formula in the next example.

How to get all duplicate values in the lookup range

As mentioned above, the Excel VLOOKUP function cannot get duplicate instances of the lookup
value. To do this, you would need a far more complex array formula consisting of several Excel
functions such as INDEX, SMALL and ROW.

For instance, the below formula finds all instances of the value in cell F2 in the lookup range
B2:B16, and returns values from column C in the same rows:

{=IFERROR(INDEX($C$2:$C$16, SMALL(IF($F$2=B2:B16,
ROW(C2:C16)­1,""), ROW()­3)),"")}

Copy the below formula to several adjacent cells, e.g. cells F4:F8 as demonstrated in the
screenshot below. The number of cells where you copy the formula should be equal to or larger
than the maximum number of possible duplicate entries. Also, remember to press
Ctrl + Shift + Enter to enter an array formula correctly.

If you are curious to know the underlying logic, let's drill down into the formula a bit:

Part 1. IF($F$2=B2:B16,ROW(C2:C16)­1,"")

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 5/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup

$F$2=B2:B16 - compares the value in cell F2 with each value in the range B2:B16. If a match is
found, ROW(C2:C16)­1 returns the number of the corresponding row (-1 is used to deduct the
header row). If the compared values do not match, the IF function returns an empty string.

The result of the IF function is the following array {1, "", 3, "", 5, "", "", "", "", "", "",12, "", "", ""}

Part 2. ROW()­3

In this case, the ROW function acts as an incremental counter. Since the formula is copied into
cells F4:F9, we add -3 for the function to return 1 for cell F4 (row 4 minus 3), 2 for cell F5 (row 5
minus 3), etc.

Part 3. SMALL(IF($F$2=$B$2:$B$16,ROW($C$2:$C$16)­1,""),ROW()­3))

The SMALL function returns the k-th smallest value in a data set. In our case, the position (from
the smallest) to return is defined by the ROW function (Part 2). So, for cell F4, the function
SMALL({array},1) returns the 1st (smallest) element of the array, i.e. 1. For cell F5, it returns the
2nd smallest element of the array, which is 3, and so on.

Part 4. INDEX($C$2:$C$16, SMALL(IF($F$2=$B$2:$B$16,

ROW($C$2:$C$16)­1,""), ROW()­3))

The INDEX function simply returns the value of a specified cell in the array C2:C16. For cell F4,
INDEX($C$2:$C$16,1) returns "Apples"; for cell F5, INDEX($C$2:$C$16,3) returns
"Sweets", etc.

Part 5. IFERROR()

Finally, we wrap the formula in the IFERROR function, because you would hardly want to see N/A
error messages in your worksheet when the number of cells where you've copied the formula is
greater than the number of duplicate occurrences of the lookup value.

Download this sample (Get all duplicate values in the lookup range).

How to do two-way lookup in Excel

Performing 2-dimensional lookup in Excel means to search for a value based on a column and
row value. In other words, you look up a value at the intersection of a certain row and column.

So, let's use our 'Monthly Sales' table again and write a VLOOKUP formula that finds how many
lemons were sold in March.

You can do two-way lookup in a few different ways. So, look through the possible alternatives
below and choose your winner : )

VLOOKUP & MATCH functions

You can use a liaison of the VLOOKUP and MATCH functions to cross-reference two fields in a
database, Product (row) and Month (column) in this example:

=VLOOKUP("Lemons",$A$2:$I$9,MATCH("Mar",$A$1:$I$1,0),FALSE)

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 6/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
The formula above is a usual Excel VLOOKUP function that searches for the exact match of
"Lemons" in cells A2 through I9. But, since you do not know in which exactly column March's sales
are, you cannot supply the column number in the third argument of your VLOOKUP formula.
Instead, you use the MATCH function to find that column.

Translated into plain English, the function MATCH("Mar",$A$1:$I$1,0)means:

Look up "Mar" (lookup_value argument).

Search in cells A1 to I1 (lookup_array argument).

Return the exact match (match_type argument). By using "0" in the 3rd parameter, you tell the
MATCH function to find the first value that is exactly equal to the lookup value. You can regard it
as an equivalent of the False parameter in VLOOKUP.

This is how you create a lookup formula with two criteria in Excel, which is also known as a two-
way, or two-dimensional lookup.

SUMPRODUCT function
The SUMPRODUCT function multiplies the components in the given arrays, and returns their sum:

=SUMPRODUCT(($A$2:$A$9="Lemons")*($A$1:$I$1="Mar"),$A$2:$I$9)

INDEX & MATCH functions

In will explain these functions in full detail in the next article, so you can simply grab the formula
for now :

=INDEX($A$2:$I$9,MATCH("Lemons",$A$2:$A$9,0),MATCH("Mar",$A$1:$I$1,0))

Named Ranges & SPACE (intersection operator)

If you are not particularly fond of all those complex Excel formulas, you may like this visual and
easy-to-remember way:

1. Select you table, switch to the Formulas tab and click Create from Selection.

2. Select the "Top row" and "Left column options. Microsoft Excel will create names from the
values in the top row and left-most column of your selection, and you will be able to look up those
names directly instead of making up a formula.

3. In any empty cell, type =row_value column_value, e.g. =Lemons Mar, or vice versa =Mar Lemons.

Please remember to separate your row value and column value with a space, which acts as the
intersection operator in this case.

As you type, Microsoft Excel will display a list of matching names, exactly as it does when you start
typing a formula.

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 7/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup

4. Press the Enter key and verify the result.

All in all, whichever method you choose, the result of your two-dimensional lookup will be the
same:

Download this sample (2-way VLOOKUP).

How to do multiple vlookups in one formula (nested

vlookup)
Sometimes it may happen that your main table and lookup table do not have a single column in
common, which prevents you from doing a normal vlookup. However, there exists another table,
which does not contain the information you are looking for, but has one common column with
your main table and another common column with your lookup table.

Let's consider the following example. You have the main table with a single column, New SKU, and
you need to pull the corresponding prices from another table. Also, you have 2 lookup tables - the
first contains the same New SKU numbers and product names, while the other lists the product
names, prices, but the Old SKU numbers.

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 8/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup

To pull the prices from Lookup table 2 to the Main table, you have to perform what is known as
Excel's double vlookup, or nested vlookup.

1. Create a VLOOKUP formula that finds the product name in "Lookup table 1", using a new SKU as
the lookup value:

=VLOOKUP(A2,New_SKU,2,FALSE)

Where 'New_SKU' is a named range for $A:$B in "Lookup table 1", and "Lookup table 2", is column B
containing the products names (please see the image above).

2. Write the formula to pull the prices from "Lookup table 2", based on the product's name, by
nesting the above vlookup function in the lookup criteria:

=VLOOKUP(VLOOKUP(A2,New_SKU,2,FALSE),Price,3,FALSE)

Where 'Price' is a named range $A:$C in Lookup table 2, and 3 is column C containing the prices.

The screenshot below shows the result returned by our nested vlookup formula:

Download this sample (nested VLOOKUP).

Use VLOOKUP and INDIRECT to dynamically pull

data from different sheets
https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 9/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup

data from different sheets

To begin with, let's define what exactly "dynamically pull data from different sheets" means to
make sure we are on the same page : )

In some cases, you may have data in the same format split over multiple spreadsheets and each
time you want to pull matching data from a specific sheet depending on what value is entered in a
given cell. I think this will be easier to understand from an example.

Suppose, you have a few regional sales reports for the same products in the same format, and
you want to find the sales number for a certain region:

If you have just a couple of regional reports, you can use a fairly simple VLOOKUP formula with an
IF function to select the correct sheet for vlookup:

=VLOOKUP($D$2,IF($D3="FL",FL_Sales,CA_Sales),2,FALSE)

Where:

$D$2 is a cell containing the "Product Name". Note that we use absolute cell references in this
case to prevent the lookup value from changing when copying the formula to other cells.

$D3 is a cell with the state name (use an absolute column reference and relative row if you plan
to copy the formula to other cells in the same column).

FL_Sales and CA_Sales are the table names, or named ranges, for corresponding sales reports.
You can also use worksheets names and usual cell ranges, e.g. 'FL Sheet'!$A$3:$B$10, but using
named ranges is much more convenient.

However, if you have multiple lookup tables, the IF function is not the ideal solution. Instead, you
can use the INDIRECT function to return the required lookup range.

As you probably know, the Excel INDIRECT function is used to indirectly reference a cell, and this is
exactly what we need now. So, go ahead and replace the IF statement with the INDIRECT
reference in the above formula. The following combination of VLOOKUP and INDIRECT works a
treat in our case:

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 10/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup

=VLOOKUP($D$2,INDIRECT($D3&"_Sales"),2,FALSE)

Where:

$D$2 is the cell containing the product name, it always remains constant due to the absolute
row and column references.

$D3 is the cell containing the first state name, FL in our case.

"_Sales" is the common part of your range names, or table names. Concatenated with the value
in cell D3 it makes the full name of the required range. Below I'll provide some more details for
those who do not have much experience with Excel's INDIRECT function.

INDIRECT & VLOOKUP - how it works

First off, let me remind you the syntax of the INDIRECT function: INDIRECT(ref_text, [a1])

The first parameter can be a cell reference of the A1-style or R1C1-style, a range name, or a text
string. The second parameter specifies what type of reference is contained in ref_text - A1-style
(TRUE or omitted) or R1C1-style (FALSE). It is A1 in our case, so we can omit the second parameter
and focus solely on the first one.

Now, let's get back to our sales reports. As you remember, each report is a separate table residing
in a separate sheet. For the formula to work, you need to name your tables or ranges, and all of
the names should have some common part. For example, my sales reports are named: CA_Sales,
FL_Sales, TX_Sales etc. As you see, there is always the _Sales part.

So, our INDIRECT function INDIRECT($D3&"_Sales") concatenates the value in column D and the
word _Sales (with an underscore), and tells the VLOOKUP function in which exactly table to look
up. That is, if you have FL in cell D3, the formula will search in the FL_Sales table, if CA - in CA_Sales
table, and so on.

The result produced by your VLOOKUP and INDIRECT functions will look similar to this:

If your data reside in different workbooks, you will have to add a workbook name before the
named region (WorkbookName!NamedRange), for example:

=VLOOKUP($D$2,INDIRECT($D3&"Workbook1!_Sales"),2,FALSE)

Note. If the INDIRECT function refers to another workbook, that workbook must be open. If the
source workbook is not open, your INDIRECT formula will return the #REF! error.

Download this sample (VLOOKUP and INDIRECT).

Merge Tables Wizard - a visual way to do vlookup in

Excel
If you are not an avid fan of complex Excel formulas and you'd rather save our energies for
occupations more interesting than making your way through the arcane twists of lookup criteria
and arrays, you may find this merging tool really helpful.

Instead of writing formulas, the Merge Tables Wizard will ask you to supply your main table and
https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 11/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
lookup table, specify a common column or columns, and point out what info you want to update
or add to the end of the main table.

Then you click Next and allow the Merge Tables Wizard a few seconds to look up, match and
deliver the result. If you think you may like this add-in, you are most welcome to download a trial
version : )

You may also be interested in:

Excel VLOOKUP tutorial for beginners

How to use VLOOKUP & SUM or SUMIF functions in Excel

INDEX & MATCH functions in Excel - a better way to do vlookup

Excel VLOOKUP not working - solutions for N/A, NAME and VALUE errors

4 ways to do a case-sensitive vlookup in Excel

Want to find more inventive tips, tricks and tutorials?

Please follow us on Google+: Follow 1.8k

157 Responses to "Advanced VLOOKUP formula examples:

nested vlookup with multiple criteria, two-way lookup"
1 rick chambers says:
July 29, 2014 at 12:59 pm

Please fix the section title:

Use VLOOKUP and INDERECT to dynamically pull data from different sheets

It should be INDIRECT

I respect your site very much. It's just that spelling errors are a pet peeve of mine.

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 12/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

July 29, 2014 at 2:03 pm

Hi Rick,

Thank you very much for spotting this error, fixed! My spell checker ignores capitalized
words, and here it is : (

Reply

Yadavagiri says:
August 18, 2015 at 6:57 pm

Very useful site, was looking over a formula from past 2 - 3 days, finally got it here with
possible result which i was expecting for. Will surely mail you if any help required in
future

Reply

2 Daniel says:
August 12, 2014 at 9:20 pm

Hi

I have a roster spreadsheet i need to use the vlookup function to calculate the hours
delivered to each client i tried to follow your formula didn't work for me can you help ?

Thanks

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

August 14, 2014 at 7:16 am

Hi Daniel,

I need to know more details about your data to be able to suggest a proper formula. If you
can send me your sample workbook at [email protected] along with the result you
want to achieve, I will try to help.

Reply

3 Firas Shahadi says:

August 24, 2014 at 2:32 pm

Thank you Svetlana for this article. A lot of good ideas there.
:)

Reply

4 Parth Patel says:

September 16, 2014 at 3:04 am

Thank you for your articles...thanks...

Reply

5 Rohit Singh says:

September 23, 2014 at 10:28 pm

Hi Svetlana,

This is the first time, i have visited your articles. And i am feeling that why did not i come
across this quite earlier...!! Awesome ideas..!!

Thanks

Reply

6 Roshan says:
September 24, 2014 at 3:55 pm

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 13/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
Hi Svetlana, I am facing issue in V lookup, as I want the 2nd 3rd or 4th lookup value in a
different tab but also I dont want to add a helper column. Can you please suggest how could I
do that? Your help is appreciated.

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

September 25, 2014 at 1:33 pm

Hi Roshan,

For the 2nd lookup you can use the following formula (described in the article):
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP($F$2,INDIRECT("$B$"&(MATCH($F$2,Table4[Customer
Name],0)+2)&":$C16"),2,FALSE),"")

You can modify it for the 3rd and 4th lookups, but these will be very long, complicated and
slow formulas. That's why I'd rather go with a helper column and then hide it.

Reply

7 Bonnie says:
September 26, 2014 at 4:21 pm

Hi,

Thanks for the helpful information.

I'm hoping you can point me in the right direction for a project I'm working on.

I have a table or list of values which I need to search for in an excel worksheet. So for
example, the list would be hammer, nails, screws, bricks, etc. And the text would be...in cell
A1 "You should have 25 bricks, 10 penny nails and a rubber hammer to complete the
project." In cell A2, "Begin by laying out the bricks"...So what I need to do is to write a macro
to go through the list, item by item and COUNTIF I get a hit within a range of text, A1:D45. In
this case bricks are mentioned 2x, nails 1x and hammer 1x. Also, the length of both the
incoming list and the text I'm looking through will be variable. Does that make sense?

Many thanks,

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

September 29, 2014 at 4:55 pm

Hi Bonnie,

In theory, you can fulfill this task using formulas, but a more flexible and quick way would
be to use a VBA macro. You can search for it in special VBA sections on these forums:
excelforum and mrexcel.com.

Reply

sai kanduri says:

November 4, 2014 at 4:58 pm

I am having a sheet with names in one column, and in another sheet with names and
numbers. i have used vlookup to get the number from sheet 2 to appropriate value in
sheet 1. The difficulty i am facing is in sheet 2 same names are there for different
numbers, so vlookup is giving the first match value and leaving the rest. Help me to solve
this issue.
like for the name glass there may be 100 101 102 456..numbers, if i am comparing glass
from sheet 1 to sheet 2 it is just picking 100 for all the rest of the names (having glass in
sheet 1).

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

November 6, 2014 at 4:23 pm

Hello Sai,

Please have a look at the Get 2nd, 3rd occurrence of the lookup value example. If you

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 14/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
want to get something different, please describe the expected result in more detail.

Reply

8 Fanny says:
September 29, 2014 at 9:40 am

can you help me work out this formula

I need to search number that can be more than 1 = SHEET 2

then if it is more that 1 word, I need to add them

have the number in SHEET 1 = need the output "apple / orange / grapes" for 293
search the number and fruits in SHEET 2

example
293 apple
293 orange
293 grapes
294 mango
294 avocado

need output "apple / orange / grapes" for 293

need output "mango / avocado" for 293

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

September 29, 2014 at 4:18 pm

Hello Fanny,

If you want the result in one cell, a special VBA macro is needed.

If you want it in several cells successively, please see the "Get 2nd, 3rd occurrence of the
lookup value" section in this tutorial:
https://www.ablebits.com/office-addins-blog/2014/07/29/vlookup-formula-
examples/#vlookup-second-occurrence

Reply

9 ann says:
September 30, 2014 at 9:12 pm

With this formula in F4 --

{=IFERROR(INDEX($C$2:$C$16,SMALL(IF($F$2=B2:B16,ROW(C2:C16)-1,""),ROW()-3)),"")}
I get "Apples".

How do I get the information on the remaining rows to show up in F5 etc..

Thanks in advance for any help.

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

October 1, 2014 at 11:23 am

Hello Ann,

Simply copy the below formula down to a few more cells, e.g. F4:F8, as in the described
example. The number of cells where you copy the formula should be equal to or larger
than the maximum number of entries the formula may return.

Reply

10 Kat says:
October 8, 2014 at 5:25 pm

I am trying to get all duplicate values in the lookup range, but I need help because some of
the names on the left only contain part of the name. For example, I want to find all the part
numbers for any "gold" material. So the names on the left could be:

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 15/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
Gold rock 123
Solid gold chair 234
Silver and gold frame 567

So could I put in "gold", and have it produce all three of those part numbers? instead of an
exact match? I hope this makes sense.

Thanks

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

October 10, 2014 at 12:04 pm

Hello Kat,

You need to add a helper column to your source table and enter the following formula
there:
=IF(ISERR(SEARCH("gold",A2))=FALSE,"OK","")

Where A is the column with the original text.

Then in the master table, search for all "OK" instances in your helper column using
formulas and pull out the corresponding Part numbers.

Reply

11 Keystone says:
October 8, 2014 at 8:07 pm

Hi!
I'm trying to use your formula which I have put together as follow:
=IFERROR(INDEX(RFVDTL!$F$2:$F$1757,
SMALL(IF($D$2=RFVDTL!A2:A1757,ROW(RFVDTL!F2:F1757)-1,""), ROW()-3)),"")

However, when I press Ctrl + Shift + Enter, I get an error s which is "Array Formulas are not
valid in merged cell" can you help please?

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

October 10, 2014 at 11:48 am

Hi!

The point is that you are trying to apply an array formula to merged cells, which is not
possible.

You can either unmerge the cells or enter an array formula into any other non-merged cell.
If you choose the latter, then type =X20 in your merged cell, where X20 is the cell that
contains an array formula.

Reply

12 Fran says:
October 9, 2014 at 4:27 pm

Hi,
I am really struggling on a work data base that I am trying to set up…
We start of with the Master Orders Workbook which consists of a summery sheet and store
order sheets. We have to copy and past the order that come in onto this workbook.
I have then set up a Master POD’s workbook which pulls through all of the information put on
to the Master Orders….but as this goes to our courier company they only need to see certain
columns. This is all ok and working.
I am now stuck, as when the original orders come through there are 2 different warehouses
on it that we pick from. WH1 in Singapore and WH2 in the UK my issue is that at the moment
we have to manually go through all of the orders and split them into WH1 and WH2.
Is there a way of setting up a Master WH1 workbook were it will only pull this information
through, even though the info I need it to look at is in column J and once it has found this I
also need it to pull through the corresponding rows. I can’t provide the sum with an exact

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 16/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
table as the size as the orders change for each order placed.
I am hoping that once I have sorted this out I will be able to do the same for WH2 and also cut
my work load down by a lot!!
If you have any ideas it would be much appreciated.
Many thank, Fran

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

October 10, 2014 at 3:44 pm

Hello Fran,

I am sorry, it is difficult to suggest anything without seeing your data. If you can send a
sample workbook and the detailed description of workflow to [email protected], we'll
try to help you.

Reply

13 Andrea says:
October 10, 2014 at 12:53 am

I am looking to do a lookup on based on two criteria, where one of the criteria would be
based on a range rather than an exact match. Do you know how I can do that?

Here are the 2 criteria:

Lumen
Output Code
2170 32.F
4970 32.F
4971 42.CF
1185 15.CF
1407 32.F
1185 32.F
1086 32.F

The codes are an exact match, but the lumen output would fall between the following ranges,
so for example, I'd want 2170 to return 18. I used the following formula to find a match based
on the 2 criteria but it only works if it's exact: =LOOKUP(2,1/(B3:B13=C16)/(D3:D13=C18),
(C3:C13))

Lumen
Output Wattage
1350 9
1800 12
1800 12
2100 14
2700 18
3300 22
3300 22
4970 28
5400 36
6600 44

Thank you in advance,

Andrea

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

October 10, 2014 at 3:40 pm

Hello Andrea,

For Lumens, you can use the Match function with of "greater than" match_type (the 3rd
argument is -1). So, first off sort your table from largest to smallest, and then use this
formula:
=INDEX(B2:B11,MATCH(2170,A2:A11,-1))

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 17/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
Where A2:B11 is the table with your data.

You can find more information about the Index/Match functions in this article:
https://www.ablebits.com/office-addins-blog/2014/08/13/excel-index-match-function-
vlookup/

If you are looking for something different, you can send us your workbook at
[email protected] and include the result you are looking for.

Reply

Andrea says:
October 10, 2014 at 5:58 pm

Thank you so much. And I can use this formula to match multiple criteria:

{=INDEX(C3:C13,MATCH(1,(B3:B13=C16)*(D3:D13=C18)*(E3:E13=C18),0))}

Reply

14 gourav garg says:

October 12, 2014 at 2:51 am

I am looking for a formula of vlookup in which we can use concatenate key of various
columns and that is used on the basis of other date function like i have to select only that
data that is nearby to that or below that date and the concatenated key may contain various
similar entries but on different date.Have you any idea how can i do this.i want to this for
transfer prices because it contains a huge data.

Reply

15 gourav garg says:

October 12, 2014 at 7:27 am

I have a data of around 40000 rows of inter unit transfer entries and i have to get prices or
data from other sales near to that date or before that date maximum 30 to 40 days.with the
help of concatenate formula i made a key to get the data with the help of vlookup but the
issue faced by me the vlookup function pick the value which it found first in the data but i
have to get data near by to that date or of the the same date.I'm not understanding which
formula we can use to extract data from the normal sales.Because the data is to huge it is
very difficult to do this manually.IF it is possible please tell me the solution.

Reply

16 Алексей says:
October 13, 2014 at 8:41 am

Hello Svetlana,

Thanks for this tutorial. Your handling of Excel functions is too good.

Reply

17 revanth says:
October 15, 2014 at 8:16 am

i have partial number like 456 out of full value 123456789(under id heading)
here table contains id,product,customer,q1,q2,a3

so how can i retrieve the full value(123456789) with the help of 456

please share your answers

Reply

18 Lisa says:
October 17, 2014 at 9:26 pm

I would like to copy this formula down multiple rows on a spreadsheet:

=IF(ISERROR(INDEX($A$1:$B$8, SMALL(IF($A$1:$A$8=$E1, ROW($A$1:$A$8)), ROW(1:1)),2)),"",
INDEX($A$1:$B$8, SMALL(IF($A$1:$A$8=$E1, ROW($A$1:$A$8)), ROW(1:1)),2))

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 18/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
But my index and therefore row # needs to change according to when the index number
changes. Let's say I have 8 skus in my assortment. I know the first 5 will be new skus, so I
would have my item number (1234, 455, etc.) filled in, but the sku column is blank. The last
three are skus I'm carrying over and I don't need to worry about them. When I use the
formula above, it works for the first three items because it refers back to cell A1 which is the
first 1234. But when I get to 455, it leaves a blank cell because it's looking for the 4th row of
A1. Is there anyway to have it move to the new number of 455 without having to retype in the
new row number each time?

1234 this is new sku

1234 so is this
1234 and this
455 new sku1
455 new sku2
819 old sku1 - no formula
819 old sku2 - no formula
222 filled in - no formula

Reply

19 Avinash says:
October 20, 2014 at 6:11 am

Hello,

I have two sheets with data.In third sheet, I would like to display the value of one cell by
checking it in two sheets simultaneously. Can we do this with vlook up.

Ex: Name Sales Name Sales Name Sales

A2D5B?
B 6 E 10 E ?
C8F4D?

As you can see there are two different tables with different values. There is third table with
same names. Now I want to show there sales by looking into both the tables.

What is the formula that I should be looking.

Thanks,
Avinash B

Reply

20 Amireleslam says:
October 26, 2014 at 11:50 am

Thanks, You're really very helpful

For Sure, I added your website to my favorite list and share to facebook

Reply

21 Yaseen says:
October 28, 2014 at 1:21 am

{=IFERROR(INDEX($B$2:$B$22,SMALL(IF($A$24=A2:A22,ROW(B2:B22)-1,""),ROW()-3)),"")}

This formula isn't working for me, after i press Shft+cntrl+enter nothing comes up.

Reply

22 Muhammad Rafil says:

October 29, 2014 at 12:34 pm

Thanks for this helpful article; I use vlookup with match formula that has solved my problem.

Thanks again Deen.

Reply

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 19/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
23 Beer says:
October 29, 2014 at 4:38 pm

I have one issue with my formula to find the value from another table on the same sheet that
you can see their example as below.

Table A Table B
AUV
1 TC10001 RQ12345 TC10003,TC10002
2 TC10002 RQ12346 TC10003
3 TC10003 RQ12347 TC10002,TC10001
....
....
....
100 TC10100 RQ12445 TC10050,TC10003,TC10001

My formula is "=VLOOKUP("*"&MID($A1,3,5)&"*",U:V,1,FALSE)". Can you please help me to

correct my formula? My expected result is formula should return at least only one value of
column V.

Thanks a lot in advance for any help

Beer :)

Reply

24 Pam says:
October 31, 2014 at 9:11 pm

I am creating a new sales analysis file to track sales over several years. My file has multiple
worksheets. The first sheet, Sheet1, has raw data downloaded from our order entry system.
Column D in Sheet1 holds the invoice date.

Because we run on a Fiscal year cycle, not a calendar year cycle, I now want to automatically
calculate the correct fiscal year for the invoice date into Sheet1, Column F.

I have created a table on Sheet2 which holds date ranges that corresponds to fiscal years, ie:
Sheet2, Column A, Rows 1 thru' 10 = StartDate
Sheet2, Column B, Rows 1 thru' 10 = End Date
Sheet2, Column C, Rows 1 thru' 10 = Fiscal Year

I have been struggling to find a formula that will automatically calculate this information for
me on Sheet1 in Column F. I have tried index-match, vlookup, lookup, LessThan, etc and
cannot get this figured out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

November 5, 2014 at 1:51 pm

Hello Pam,

On Sheet 2, sort the dates by column A in ascending order, and then you can apply MATCH
with the "less than" match_type parameter (1 or ommitted):
=INDEX(Sheet2!$B$1:$B$10,MATCH(D2, Sheet2!$A$1:$A$5,1))

Reply

Pam says:
November 10, 2014 at 3:38 pm

Svetlana - Thank you for the reply. I will definitely give that a try today! Your help is
greatly appreciated. (Sorry for my slow reply back - I have been out of the office this past
week with the 'flu and just came back today).

Reply

25 Siva says:
November 1, 2014 at 12:06 am

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 20/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
Hi,
I need to get the PR number in Sheet: PO Short Table from Sheet : Pivot Table, based on
Drawing ID and Material. Basically lookup & match 2 cells(A3,B3) and get the value from C3.
Which formula to use? Pls help.

Sheet : Pivot Table

Sum of PR Qty.
Drawing ID Material PR No. Total
LMV-41105060 SDSU16404121 3000053435 13

Sheet: PO Short Table

DWG ID System Matl No Matl Description PO Qty PR No
LMV-41105060 AFS SDSU16404121 STUD PAD 0

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

November 5, 2014 at 1:47 pm

Hello Siva,

You need to look up by two columns, please see the example here:
https://www.ablebits.com/office-addins-blog/2014/08/13/excel-index-match-function-
vlookup/#lookup-multiple-criteria

Reply

26 Aravind says:
November 4, 2014 at 1:12 pm

DATE CODE SUBJECT NAME TIME

10-Nov-14 EC-601 English - IV FN
10-Nov-14 M-601 English –IV FN
10-Nov-14 EC-304 Communication AN
10-Nov-14 M-307 Machine Drawing AN
11-Nov-14 EC-404 Microprocessors FN
11-Nov-14 M-401 English-III FN
11-Nov-14 EC-104 Engineering AN
11-Nov-14 M-107 Engineering Drawing AN
I want only one item in Code column to be displayed one by one at different locations based
DATE and TIME columns

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

November 5, 2014 at 1:37 pm

Hello Aravind,

I am sorry, I cannot follow you. If you can send a sample workbook with your data to
[email protected] including the expected result, our support team will try to help.

Reply

27 Russ says:
November 4, 2014 at 9:19 pm

I believe this is the info i've been looking for to put together this project that i've been trying
to wrap my head around
What i would like to do is Input a "part#" using VLOOKUP to list all of the tools I need to make
said part (i've accomplished this much) at the same time have it kick back a number that
refers to current inventory for said tools (this number can change at any moment). So i know
i'm going to need more than 1 spreadsheet to complete this task. I can run an inventory
report anytime and export it to excel so my question is, can i build a template that i can drop
my current inventory list in to that already has the formulas written out? What are the
formulas i need to use to tie the 2 spreadsheets together? We have hundreds of different
part numbers and thousands of tools and not having a system in place has bogged us down.
End goal is to avoid "spot buying" and get ahead of the curve and forecast my tool ordering

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 21/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
before the job hits the floor. Tool list's with the part #'s are already populated awaiting my
completion of this task
Thank you much and i hope theres no confusion here.

Reply

Russ says:
November 5, 2014 at 1:18 pm

EXAMPLE
Input:866637
Return: 1/4 drill 4pcs
.3438 drill 2pcs
3/4 end mill 1pc
1/2-14 npsf 5pcs

i figured one workbook would be my part numbers with tools listed and the 2nd being my
current inventory.

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

November 6, 2014 at 3:53 pm

Hello Russ,

I am sorry, it is difficult to recommend anything without seeing your data. If you can send a
sample workbook to [email protected] and include the result you want to get, our
support team will try to help.

Reply

28 Terrance Veal says:

November 5, 2014 at 6:18 pm

I need help with a formula. Can someone assist?

Reply

29 Katrina says:
November 12, 2014 at 8:31 am

Hi Svetlana,
Thanks for the suggestions - there are some very good ones in here. I am familiar with the
VLOOKUP formula, but have often wondered if there is a way to look through several
worksheets. I have a roster template I use and I create a new worksheet for each roster. I
would like a worksheet at the frontthat acts like a summary table, where the first column
contains a code, which matches the name of the relevant roster worksheet. The rest of the
columns in the table will find the appropriate worksheet (based on what is in the first column)
and return the data from each field in my roster template.
Any tricks you could suggest would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Reply

30 Barbara says:
November 14, 2014 at 8:04 pm

Dear Svetlana,

thank you for such a great site. I'm actually learning to use excel as more than just a list
keeper. As I was using your formula for duplicate values in a look up range, I ran into a few
problems. The information was only being picked up in one cell (I'm searching for dates).
After I set the dates in the original column and the lookup column to the exact format, all of
the dates show except for the first dates on the original list. I'm sure it's a small tweaky thing
but I've been at it for 3 hours with no success. Do you have any suggestions on what I should
look for as I'm troubleshooting? Thank you.

Reply

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 22/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
31 ANAND says:
November 15, 2014 at 6:16 am

Dear Svetlana,

I am very much impressed by the guidelines you are providing for the problems faced by the
Excel users. Really it is a quite best Website for having expert advice for advanced Excel users.

Thanks for your sharing.

With regards.

CMA Anand

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

November 17, 2014 at 12:56 pm

Thank you very much for your kind words, Anand! I'm pleased to know you've found the
tutorial helpful.

Reply

32 sandeep says:
November 17, 2014 at 7:26 am

Dear Sir,

Iam trying to do lookup with multiple cateria like

I have one sheet with account number,name & business

as well I have one sheet, when I will mentioned account number in sheet one formula will
check aacount number & name then business will come

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

November 17, 2014 at 12:54 pm

Hello Sandeep,

A similar example is described in How to do a vlookup with multiple criteria. This example
explains how to look up with 2 criteria "Customer Name" and "Product". Your can
download the example in the end of that section and adjust the cell references in the
formulas.

Reply

33 samantha says:
November 17, 2014 at 10:07 am

I need a formula were in can get what ever the data i feed in from sheet 1 to sheet 2 in the
same workbook ?

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

November 17, 2014 at 12:45 pm

Hello Samantha,

If you need to simply have the data copied from sheet1 to sheet2 as you enter it, you can
put this formula in cell A1 on sheet2 and then copy it to all other cells:
=Sheet1!A1

Reply

34 Daro says:
November 18, 2014 at 4:45 am

I have the following

A2

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 23/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
B5
C3

I want it to
A
A
B
B
B
B
B
C
C
C

Can you help me with excel formula

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

November 19, 2014 at 9:55 am

Hello Daro,

A special VBA script will be the best solution to your task. Sorry, I cannot help with this.

Reply

35 Luke says:
November 19, 2014 at 4:42 pm

Hi, I have a workbook with multiple tabs. In my master sheet I have values in column A (AA,
BB, CC, DD, EE....for example). Then I have tabs labeled AA, BB, CC, DD, EE. I'm trying to do the
same vlookup but on different tabs depending on what my master sheet column A value
has...

So if Column A is BB I want the vlookup to look at sheet BB. Here is the manual way of doing
it:

=VLOOKUP(B1,BB!A:B,2,FALSE)

Here is what i want the formula mimic so it works in a similar fashion:

=VLOOKUP(B2,A2&"!A:B",2,FALSE)

I also tried giving A:B on sheet BB a reference of 'BB' in hopes this would work:

=VLOOKUP(B2,A2,2,FALSE)

Any help is appreciated!!!

Reply

Trevor says:
March 27, 2015 at 11:59 am

I need to do the same sort of thing as Luke.

I Have a cell lets say its A1 that specifies from a drop-down list a Sheet Name (AA BB CC DD
etc)
I want to pass that reference to a VLOOKUP Formula which would be SOMETHING LIKE
=VLOOKUP(B5,A1&!D1:E22,2,False)
Where B5 is the cell containing theLookup_value, A1 is the cell containg the sheet name,
and D1:E22 is the Table array.

I have been told the INDIRECT formula should work but I am jet to find a way to get a
successful result.

Anyone Know?

Reply

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 24/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
36 VIKAS TIWARI says:
November 20, 2014 at 7:52 am

CAN WE GET MORE THAN ONE COLOUMN OF DATA SIMULTANEOUSLY BY VLOOKUP...???

Reply

37 Sarah says:
November 20, 2014 at 5:07 pm

This is great! Thank you

Reply

38 prem says:
November 21, 2014 at 7:53 am

i want sheet to sheet multiply total formula .. excell sheet

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

November 21, 2014 at 3:24 pm

Hi Prem,

It is difficult to recommend anything based on such generic description. Most likely you
need to use the SUMPRODUCT function.

Reply

39 sandip says:
November 22, 2014 at 5:50 am

i want to compare two spredsheet with name and amount in one sheet is contain in another
sheet in same combination . wich formula i use

Reply

40 Will says:
December 2, 2014 at 1:29 pm

Hi Svetlana,

This is one of the best technical Excel posts I have ever had the pleasure to read. Thank you
and well done! I do have a question however, what precisely are the "Row" functions doing in
the array formula? I am having a hard time unpacking what is going on there... I understand
the syntax but not the context. Would you please break that down a little bit more?

Lastly, in your example: "How to get all duplicate values in the lookup range", how would you
re-write the formula to report the purchased products next to the customer name, starting in
cell G2 and continuing on to the right to cell J2, etc?

Thank you for your help!

-Will

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

December 2, 2014 at 4:28 pm

Hi Will,

Thank you for your kind words and a great question : )

I thought other readers might want to know the details too, so I've added the formula
explanation to the post, hopefully it will be helpful.

And here's the formula "to report the purchased products next to the customer name,
starting in cell G2 and continuing on to the right to cell J2":

=IFERROR(INDEX($C$2:$C$16, SMALL(IF($F$2=$B$2:$B$16, ROW($C$2:$C$16)-1,""),

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 25/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
COLUMN()-6)),"")

Reply

41 Will says:
December 2, 2014 at 7:30 pm

Hi Svetlana,

Thank you so much! Your explanation was perfect. I understand now how the formula works
and was able to successfully complete my project. Thank you very much for the quick
response!

-Will

Reply

42 Amit Verma says:

December 4, 2014 at 11:44 am

Hi Svetlana,
I want to fetch all items in comma separated in Sheet1, col(n) from Sheet 2 col(x) which look
value is in col(x-2).

Please let me know how can i do this.

Thanks in advance.

Reply

43 Sree says:
December 5, 2014 at 11:33 pm

I am using google forms to make sure that staff read the circulars.
They fill up the form once they have read it.
The responses are automatically shown in a spreadsheet.

So, I have staff name in column B and Circular name in Column C

I want 0 to be shown in a column if a staff has read all 4 circulars.
How do I make that work?
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Reply

44 John says:
December 15, 2014 at 6:02 pm

Hello,

I'm trying to add multiple VLOOKUP's together (week 1, 2, 3, etc), which I can do. But if one
week is missing the item I'm looking up (person didn't take calls that week), it's giving me a
"FALSE". I tried to use the ISERROR, but it keeps giving me a "0". I know why it gives the zero,
but I'm not sure how to make it "skip" that week if the person isn't found.

Example:
IF(ISERROR((VLOOKUP(B2,'Team Stats Week 1'!B2:P21,2,FALSE))+(VLOOKUP(B2,'Team Stats
Week 2'!B2:P21,2,FALSE))),0,(VLOOKUP(B2,'Team Stats Week 1'!B2:P21,2,FALSE))+
(VLOOKUP(B2,'Team Stats Week 2'!B2:P21,2,FALSE)))

Reply

45 David says:
December 16, 2014 at 9:33 am

Hi, I'm doing my best to understand vlookups. I wanted to know if you can further break
down the following formula that you had posted. I want to fully understand why it works. The
formula is from the tutorial about looking up duplicates with vlookup. Thank you:

{=INDEX($C$2:$C$16,SMALL(IF($F$2=B2:B16,ROW(C2:C16)-1,""),ROW()-3))}

Reply

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 26/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
46 Guillaume says:
December 16, 2014 at 4:18 pm

Thank you for this interesting post. I could not find what I was looking for however.

I need to find values in rows with multiples criteria.

In the example below I have the same material being ordered under several PO numbers.

I need a formula that will tell me how many pieces of material #2 have been ordered under
PO #2

Data table
Material# PO# OnOrder

material1 PO1 5
material2 PO1 10
material3 PO1 15
material2 PO2 10
material3 PO2 8
material4 PO2 12

Result table

PO2 (citeria 1)
material2 (criteria 2) result = 10

Thanks

Reply

47 Rafiulla says:
December 21, 2014 at 10:49 am

how to use H lookup and V lookup for archiving data any suitable example?

Reply

48 Nick says:
December 21, 2014 at 10:10 pm

Hi Svetlana
When doing the formula
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP($F$2,INDIRECT("$F$2,$B$2:$B$16,0)+2)&":$C16"),2,FALSE),"")to identify
the 2nd occurrence for each name with the appropriate product, my formula returns a 0
every time I change the name. This is despite copying the one from the download sample and
changing any cell references to match above. Would have any ideas as to why this happens?.
Thank you.

Reply

49 Salman Sajid says:

December 27, 2014 at 5:32 pm

Hello Svetlana;

How I can adjust age brackets with vlookup formula using multiple criterias.

Plan Gender Age Contribution

Plan A Male 0-17 1,703
Plan A Female 0-17 1,703
Plan B Male 0-17 1,569
Plan B Female 0-17 1,569
Plan C Male 0-17 1,426
Plan C Female 0-17 1,426
Plan A Male 18-30 1,260
Plan A Female 18-30 1,264
Plan B Male 18-30 979
Plan B Female 18-30 979
Plan C Male 18-30 2,597

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 27/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
Plan C Female 18-30 3,866

I have the date in above mentioned form and I want contribution data on an other sheet
using vlookup with other 3 criterias for exact match on other sheet.

Reply

50 Saud Riaz says:

January 1, 2015 at 8:54 am

Help Full

Reply

51 Diego Silva says:

January 2, 2015 at 6:01 pm

You've just nailed it Svetlana, love you! Many thanks for this Excel cheat lol

Reply

52 Prasenjit Kar says:

January 9, 2015 at 9:36 am

Hi Svetlana, Thanks a ton for this article..

Reply

53 daniel says:
January 9, 2015 at 2:51 pm

HI Svetlana, i know..that its discussed here, but still i neeed some vlookup which would
choose according to 2 criteria in one line /third value from another sheet/ and from this sheet
will be filled into first sheet - /where are 2 criterias/
is any possible to send it the excel? that i could explain better. Thank you

Reply

54 Alireza says:
January 12, 2015 at 12:26 am

imagine there are several numbers from 1 to N, and each number can be repeated n times.
each number has a specific price. by entering a number from 1 to N How is it possible to get
the lowest price from the data table. for example :

Numbers Price
1 300
3 400
7 700
8 650
6 300
5 200
1 150
3 400
7 210
7 340

Now by entering 7 we want to find the lowest price which is 210.

how is it possible?? please help me . thank you in advance.

Reply

Prasenjit Kar says:

January 16, 2015 at 7:50 am

Hi Alireza..

If you can sort the data by ascending order then I guess it would be possible by below
method..

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 28/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
Suppose You have column from B2 to B11 the number from 1 to N and its corresponding
column (C) contains the specific prices..Then sort the data from largest to smallest at
column C then by Column B..After that use the below array formula ..

=(INDEX($C$2:$C$11,SMALL(IF(7=$B$2:$B$11,ROW($C$2:$C$11)-1,""),1)))

Please do not forget to press Cntl+Shift+enter after putting the formula..

Please let me know if it is working or not... In the mean time I will be looking for another
method...

Reply

Alireza says:
January 20, 2015 at 9:29 am

Thank you so much for your swift answer. I will try it and I will let you know.

Reply

55 Archi Maitreya says:

January 12, 2015 at 11:50 am

Hi,

I have a series of data.

Category No. EBT 53,483

1 Computed expected tax 18,719
2 State taxes, net of federal effect 469
3 "Indefinitely invested earnings of
foreign subsidiaries" -4,744
4 Research and development credit, net -88
11 Domestic production activities deduction -495
11 Other 112
Provision for income taxes 13,973

I need vlookup to find the categories 11, add both the ocrresponsing numbers (i.e. -495 and
112) and present it in the cell.

Can i do this. I tried =SUM(VLOOKUP(lookup value, lookup range, {2,3}, FALSE)) but it doesnt
work as the numbers are 1 blow the other.

Its urgent... can some1 plz help.

Thx

Reply

Prasenjit Kar says:

January 16, 2015 at 9:03 am

you can use the sumproduct formula...Suppose Column A contains Category number and
columns B contains the corresponding number ...so to find the added value for category 11
you can use the below one...

=Sumproduct((A2:A12=11)*(B2:B12))

Please check and confirm...

Reply

56 Jenny says:
January 16, 2015 at 7:28 am

Hi,

I have a data of staff name, date and daily productivity.

Data catagory as "Actuals"

ABCDE
Date Name Productivity % Agent Occupancy AHT
05-Jan-15 Staff A 107 51.42 129

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 29/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
06-Jan-15 Staff A 77 49.58 167
07-Jan-15 Staff A 100 62.69 162
05-Jan-15 Staff B 68 61.99 198
06-Jan-15 Staff B 50 64.38 321
07-Jan-15 Staff B 67 74.51 255
05-Jan-15 Staff C 32 73.20 192
06-Jan-15 Staff C 20 59.11 194
07-Jan-15 Staff C 66 57.87 176

How can i lookup for Staff A, C=B & C Performance as below?

05-Jan-15 06-Jan-15 07-Jan-15

Productivity
Staff A =VLOOKUP("Staff A",Actuals,MATCH(05-Jan-15,Actuals,0),FALSE)
Staff B
Staff C

% Agent Occupancy
Staff A
Staff B
Staff C

AHT
Staff A
Staff B
Staff C

The formula seem doesn't work. May you assist?

Thanks,
Jenny

Reply

Prasenjit Kar says:

January 16, 2015 at 9:19 am

Instead of using lookup formula you can use Sumproduct function...

As per your info suppose you want to see the performance of Staff A for 5th Jan 2015...

So as per your column format the formula would be

Productivity

=SUMPRODUCT(--(TEXT($A$2:$A$11,"d-mmm-yy")="5-Jan-15")*($B$2:$B$11="Staff A")*
($C$2:$C$11))

% Agent Occupancy

=SUMPRODUCT(--(TEXT($A$2:$A$11,"d-mmm-yy")="5-Jan-15")*($B$2:$B$11="Staff A")*
($D$2:$D$11))

AHT

=SUMPRODUCT(--(TEXT($A$2:$A$11,"d-mmm-yy")="5-Jan-15")*($B$2:$B$11="Staff A")*
($E$2:$E$11))

Please check...

Reply

57 dlonred says:
January 20, 2015 at 4:00 pm

i have a worksheet with various data, i want to transfer some selected columns and multiple
rows at the same time in other worksheet using vba

Reply

58 majid says:
January 22, 2015 at 8:06 am

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 30/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
this is relay very help full for me thank your dear Svetlana Cheusheva.

Reply

59 Gary Copeland says:

February 2, 2015 at 10:14 pm

Saved me hours of formula testing and frustration.

5 mins of reading saved hours of vlookup frustrations.

Thank you very much

Reply

60 Elizabeth J says:
February 13, 2015 at 6:15 pm

Hi Svetlana,
Your tutorials and instructions are fantastic! I am under the impression that the
function/formula I am trying to create is not possible in Excel and I am at my wits end. Here is
the basic gist:

Column A contains various vendors

Column B contains various account types

I would like to have it so that each cell in an entire sheet will provide the results of each
criteria (all of the data is text)

Column A header is ingredient 1

Column B header is add 2

Column A2: Eggs

Column B2: Bacon
therefore.....
Column C2: Delicious

Column A3: Yogurt

Column B3: Cheese
therefore.....
Column C3: Gross

Column A4: Banana

Column B4: Peanut Butter
therefore.....
Column C4: Healthy

I am happy to send over a sample spreadsheet I have that I've been playing with. The report I
use typically has 200-300 rows of data. Currently this analysis is done manually and takes
DAYS. Thank you!

Reply

61 Harmony says:
February 16, 2015 at 3:23 pm

Svetlana,

Thank you so much for this very helpful post. I'm trying to use the array formula for duplicate
values in a range.

=INDEX('Cert II Unit Selector'!$B$30:$B$39,SMALL(IF('Cert II Unit

Selector'!K30:K39="Y",ROW('Cert II Unit Selector'!B30:B39)-1,""),ROW()-3))

I keep getting a #Value error. Essentially, a "Y" is placed next to different selections out of
many(say 16 out of 50), and i'd like the title of those labelled "Y" to be copied down row by
row onto another worksheet.

Your formula seems to be the best option for this (I'm VBA shy) but I can't get it to work? Am I
doing something wrong?

Reply

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 31/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
62 Ezzedin Qasem says:
February 19, 2015 at 10:28 am

thank you for your detail explanation

but i'm working with price table for the same product has more than one price ( from
different supplier) i would like to be the output is the lowest price below

pipe material pipe size pipe type pipe price pipe supplier
pvc 100 sch40 62$ aapco
pvc 150 sch40 72$ aapco
pvc 200 sch40 82$ aapco
pvc 100 sch40 55$ amis
so i need the out if the pipe material is pvc and size is 100 and type is sch40 the lowest price
(55)?
can you help me please

Reply

63 Rahul says:
February 24, 2015 at 8:58 am

How to assign same value to a cell using dependent list?

For(your)example: how can I assign/populate same list for two values(fruits) say 'Mango' and
'Apricot' dynamically without duplicating the list
values?
Please let me know.

Reply

64 Kim says:
March 13, 2015 at 2:20 am

Hello Svetlana, I want to create a formula that allows me to firstly find a matching code, then
to find a matching date then once both of those items are found to populate the cell with the
figure (this figure would be in the cell below the date) see below for example.

Example 1 (I want to create the formula in the #REF cell under the 24,000):
29820 Basket 31/03/2015 06/04/2015
SOH 24,000
Total OPENING SOH 24,000 #REF! #REF! #REF!
Demand #REF! #N/A #N/A #N/A
Projected Closing Stock #REF! #REF! #REF! #REF!

Example 2 (this data is on a separate worksheet within the same spreadsheet):

31/03/2015 1/04/2015 8/07/2014 19/08/2014

29820 Basket 21760 27200 27200 21760 59840 27200 27200

So ultimately I want to be able to firstly find the code 29820 in the worksheet, then if the date
in the worksheet matches the same date in the main worksheet to populate that cell with the
number below the date?

Is this at all possible?

Thanks,

Reply

65 swaminathan says:
March 13, 2015 at 6:16 am

=VLOOKUP(G2,Table2[[Vendor Name]:[Vendor code2]],2,0) in need to some example this

formulas i try to previous work based but i couldn't completed so kingly updated this

Reply

66 swaminathan says:
March 13, 2015 at 6:17 am

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 32/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
Sl.No Inv. Ref. No. Inv.Rcvd. Date Status Month Vendor Code Vendor Name Invoice Date Job
Ref. ID Inv. Amount 7 % GST Total Inv. Value Due Date Credit Days (terms)
RE/PY/17 000017 8-Jan-13 PD 1-2013 0 EUROSAFE PTE LTD DECEMBER 3-Jan-15 R356 $36.90
$- $36.90 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/18 000018 24-Jan-13 PD 1-2013 0 VICTORIA PROPERTIES & INVESTMENT PTE LTD
IN0000236125 23-Dec-14 R405 $2,519.23 $176.35 $2,695.58 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/19 000019 24-Jan-13 PD 1-2013 0 SP SERVICES LTD PSI-V9-77756 17-Dec-14 R405
$3,132.00 $219.24 $3,351.24 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/20 000020 24-Jan-13 PD 1-2013 0 SMS DESIGN PTE LTD PSI-V9-77755 20-Dec-14 R405
$1,350.65 $94.55 $1,445.20 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/21 000021 6-Feb-13 PD 2-2013 0 SWOT TECHNOLOGIES PVT. LTD. LSPI-001596 22-Dec-
14 R405 $1,400.00 $98.00 $1,498.00 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/22 000022 7-Jun-13 PD 6-2013 0 EUROSAFE PTE LTD 4517 9-Dec-14 R400 $530.00
$37.10 $567.10 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/23 000023 20-Feb-13 PD 2-2013 0 SMS DESIGN PTE LTD INV-2014-074 22-Dec-14 R405
$10,330.00 $723.10 $11,053.10 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/24 000024 20-Feb-13 PD 2-2013 0 SMS DESIGN PTE LTD TU-IV1501-0119 1-Jan-15 R356
$3,480.00 $109.20 $3,589.20 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/25 000025 21-Feb-13 PD 2-2013 0 SMS CONSULTING ENGINEERS PROGRESS CLAIM
NO.2 6-Nov-14 R400 $12,554.25 $878.80 $13,433.05 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/26 000026 25-Feb-13 PD 2-2013 0 VICTORIA PROPERTIES & INVESTMENT PTE LTD PT-
2013-3512 20-Nov-13 R390 $350.00 $24.50 $374.50 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/27 000027 25-Feb-13 PD 2-2013 0 SP SERVICES LTD ADVANCE 7-Jan-15 R356 $25,000.00
$- $25,000.00 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/28 000028 12-Mar-13 PD 3-2013 0 EUROSAFE PTE LTD 11/348 24-May-11 R356
$1,000.00 $- $1,000.00 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/29 000029 12-Mar-13 PD 3-2013 0 SMS DESIGN PTE LTD 119618/2Q 31-Dec-14 R357
$50.00 $3.50 $53.50 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/30 000030 22-Mar-13 PD 3-2013 0 SP SERVICES LTD 76666 25-Jul-14 R357 $33.00 $-
$33.00 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/31 000031 28-Mar-13 PD 3-2013 0 VICTORIA PROPERTIES & INVESTMENT PTE LTD PSI-
V9-78007 27-Dec-14 R405 $1,147.50 $80.33 $1,227.83 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/32 000032 3-Apr-13 PD 4-2013 0 SP SERVICES LTD PSI-V9-78008 26-Dec-14 R405
$3,272.50 $229.08 $3,501.58 #N/A #N/A
RE/PY/33 000033 3-Apr-13 PD 4-2013 0 SMS DESIGN PTE LTD 108020970 22-Dec-14 R405
$5,232.00 $366.24 $5,598.24 #N/A #N/A

Reply

67 sandeep says:
March 25, 2015 at 6:36 am

how many types of vlookup exist?

Reply

68 phani says:
April 4, 2015 at 10:34 am

Thanks
info helped me a lot

Reply

69 Samer says:
April 19, 2015 at 1:57 am

Hi..super work and brilliant ideas. I have a problem in excel that I hope you may be able to
help me with. I have a worksheet in which I want to find multiple values that correspond to a
merge cell. My worksheet contains Buses 1-4 (A4:A11), each bus in 2 merged cells (for
example Bus 1 in merged cells (A4:A5) and each bus has 2 routes (R1 & R2) and 3 stops (S1,
S2, S3)in each route in the morning (AM), afternoon (PM), and night (HS). I want vlookup to
find the times each bus in waits in each stop for each route at the three different periods
(AM, PM, HS). Seems complex by I dried a hundred times to solve it..no way. Any suggestions?

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 33/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
I can provide you with a screen snapshot of my excel sheet, or upload it if that helps. Thanks
a million
Samer

Reply

70 sandeep says:
April 23, 2015 at 11:11 pm

Team, i need code for below:

Input:

A 12
A 11
A 10
B 11
B 12

Out put:
A 12 11 10
B 11 12

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

April 24, 2015 at 4:44 pm

Hi Sandeep,

You can check out the Vlookup formula discussed in Get all duplicate occurrences or use
the Combine Rows Wizard for Excel:
https://www.ablebits.com/excel-combine-rows/index.php

Reply

71 Famy says:
April 27, 2015 at 8:43 am

Hi, seek help on below.

Item1 1.05 A
Item1 2.50 B
Item1 7.85 C

I need a formula to match both below:

-item
-price that could different by +/-0.50

Example, if I lookup :
a. Item1, 2.00 - Return B
b. Item 1, 5.00 - Error

Would really appreciate any help or just throw in any ideas as brainstorm. Thanks

Reply

72 Anso says:
April 30, 2015 at 3:54 am

I have 2 reports; one of previous report and one of current report.

In the current report, I run vlookup against the previous report for dates to identify new
entries and old entries. After which, I run true false to identify whether the dates of the
previous report match/differs with the dates of the current report.
The purpose is to check what are the new entries and also to check if there are date changes
from the previous entries.
The challenge is I create two columns, one for vlookup, one for true false.
Is there anyway to combine both formulas and have just one column?

Reply

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 34/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
73 Bajwa says:
May 6, 2015 at 6:33 pm

Dear all, I want data in below given foramt kindly help me

Source Cell Neighour Cell Source Cell NB1 NB2 NB3 NB4
A1A1234
A 2 B 4 5 6 19
A 3 C 7 8 9 10
B4
B5
B6
C7
C8
C9
C 10

Thanks

Reply

74 Laura says:
May 13, 2015 at 3:50 pm

Hi, I have been trying to figure this out for some time now so I hope you can help - I have 2
seperate spreadsheets that I need to combine into a sales forecast.

Basically, I have 2 tabs in my sales and stock forecast -

1st sheet has product SKUs in stock, and quantity

2nd sheet has product SKUs and sales in units, not £

I paste into the stock sheet from an external source, and also the sales from a different
source - hence the seperation. The SKUs in stock may not always match the SKU sales, so I
need to first match the SKUs, to save trolling through a large number of them, and then
transfer over the sold units.

eg:

SKUs in stock
tshirt 2
bottle 4
shorts 2
cap 3

SKU sales
tshirt 1
bottle 2
cap 1

So, I think, I need to match tshirt, bottle and cap in the forecast sheet and then match over
the sales for each so I can then forecast the next stock.

I hope this makes sense?!

Many thanks in advance

Reply

75 elwood says:
May 14, 2015 at 3:59 am

I am trying to use Vlookup in pulling out the grades from a transmutation table. Column A is
the lookup value and column B is the equivalent grade. The values in A begin with 0 and
increments of 0.01 while column B begins with 60. When this formula is used:
=VLOOKUP(T4,Sheet2!$A$1:$B$10000,2,FALSE) the returning value is #N/A.

Thank you for your help.

Reply

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 35/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
76 Izwan says:
May 14, 2015 at 4:19 am

Thanks for the great post. Nevertheless, I have been presented a problem to interpolate in a
given lookup "string" which is concatenated a "value" . As an example :

The string here would represent the pipe name, value is the pipe number, value2 represents
the depth and value 3 is the x-coordinate.
--String Value Value2 Value 3
Pipe 1 200 50
Pipe 1 210 60
Pipe 2 200 45
Pipe 2 250 60
Pipe 3 150 50
Pipe 3 200 55

I'd like to create a lookup function which I can not only identify but interpolate the x-
coordinate (value 3) at a given pipe depth (value 2) and pipe identification (String and value) .

Naturally I have tried to use combined "helper" (=Pipe&3&150) but unfortunately excel treats
this a string but not values. This can only work if I provide the exact depth which would return
the exact coordinate value on the table.

Any advice, my respected excel gurus?

Reply

Alexander says:
May 15, 2015 at 3:10 pm

Izwan,

For us to be able to assist you better, please send your sample workbook with the source
data and expected result to [email protected]. I am sorry, at the moment it is not very
clear why you need interpolation.

Reply

77 Clark says:
May 22, 2015 at 5:01 pm

Hi!

This was very helpful.

If i want the multiple results to be displayed in columns how will i do it with this?

{=IFERROR(INDEX($C$2:$C$16,SMALL(IF($F$2=B2:B16,ROW(C2:C16)-1,""),ROW()-3)),"")}

Thank you!

Reply

78 Martin N says:
June 4, 2015 at 7:34 pm

Hello,
Can you explain how to get all Duplicate values in a lookup range, looking up values in a
different worksheet(of the same workbook)?

Reply

79 Assad Ashfi says:

June 10, 2015 at 3:10 pm

I want 0 inspite of #N/A when ever vlookup comes up with no value (& there is also actually
not any value against that respective reference).Can you kindly tell me how can I get that. I
used If(iserror also but it brings "Blank" cell when there is #N/A but our requirement is 0.

Help is greatly appreciated

Reply

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 36/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
Svetlana Cheusheva says:
June 16, 2015 at 10:40 am

Hi Assad,

You can use the IFNA function with 0 in the second argument, like this:
=IFNA(VLOOKUP(), 0)

If you want the formula to bring 0 instead of any errors, not only #N/A, then use the
IFERROR function:
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(), 0)

Reply

80 Amol says:
June 16, 2015 at 6:10 am

how i should proceed for more than two cloumn lookup criteria.

Reply

81 Chris says:
June 17, 2015 at 6:34 pm

Hi, I was wondering if you could help me please?

I am trying to do a two way VLOOKUP , I have sales invoice numbers and purchase invoice
numbers as the initial look up cells, I then want to search for these invoices in two other
worksheets, I then would like to column next to the invoice number on the other sheets to
appear. I have this at the moment but I does not appear to work,

=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(D39,'Purchase Ledger Control'!B13:B33,2,0)),"",IF(VLOOKUP(D39,'Purchase

Ledger Control'!B13:B33,2,0)="",""&IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(E39,'Sales Ledger
Control'!B13:B30,2,0)),"",IF(VLOOKUP(E39,'Sales Ledger Control'!B13:B30,2,0)="",""))))

Thanks for your help in advance.

Chris

Reply

82 Anne says:
June 19, 2015 at 1:09 pm

Hi,

Thank you for your very useful posts and I hope you can help with a problem I have:

I have a cell (C6) which contains text based on a vlookup formula. I want another cell (G6) to
return either "True" or "False" based on the text in C6. In G6 I have 'IF(C6="Air
Cooled","True","False") but this doesn't work. If I just type "Air Cooled" into C6 then it's fine,
G6 returns "True".

Can you please tell me if there is a way around this?

Thank you.

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

June 19, 2015 at 1:33 pm

Hi Anne,

Your formula is correct and it should work both for values typed manually and returned by
other formulas, and it works just fine in my test sheet. An immediate reason for the
formula not working that comes to mind is that the value returned by your Vlookup
formula has some slight difference in spelling, or a double space between words, leading
or trailing space, etc.

Reply

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 37/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
83 Excel says:
June 20, 2015 at 5:49 pm

How can I combine two VLookup formulas together, for example the formula I am using is
=if(A1=","",VLOOKUP(A1,PRODUCTS,3,FALSE)&IF(A1=","",VLOOKUP(A1,PRODUCTS,2,FALSE))) in
return I am getting two answers when I only want one answer not both, if I enter criteria 3 I
want to get criteria 3 and if I enter criteria 2 I want to get criteria 2 not both at the same time
like I am getting now.
item product cost
9501

Reply

84 Excel says:
June 20, 2015 at 5:51 pm

see sample spreadsheet

ABC
item product cost
9501 orange 3.5
9502 apple 4.5
9503 pear 6.0

Reply

85 Ralph says:
June 23, 2015 at 8:09 pm

Hello

I would like to use the formula "How to do two-way lookup in Excel" and instead of getting
the value at the intersection i would like to just paint or fill the cell with a color.

Any help would be appreciated.

Ralph

Reply

86 Colleen says:
June 23, 2015 at 10:51 pm

This is wonderful, I have found this and one other article very helpful. One question, if you
have a moment, can you refer me to an article similar to this but where the second look-up
term is actually a range? For Names: John, Fred, Mark and Number of Items are either 0-10,
11-20, 21and greater.

So basically, one would select John, and enter a number, say 19, and the returning would
would be Red or if one A1=Fred, B1=25 - looking for a formula that would return the result of
Warm - based on the example table below.
Thanks!
0-10 | 11-20 | 21 and up
John Bronze |Red | Hot
Fred Silver |Orange | Warm
Mark Gold |Green | Cole

Reply

87 scott says:
July 1, 2015 at 9:22 am

Hi, i have a table with thee sheets with numerous addresses on each sheet. I want to search
each of the three sheets and only return the value if the address appears on all three sheets.
How do I do this?

Reply

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 38/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
88 SUBHAM MALLICK says:
July 23, 2015 at 10:20 am

If you send me some advanced excel formulas, I will be greatful....

Reply

Svetlana Cheusheva says:

July 23, 2015 at 11:27 am

Hi SUBHAM,

You can download a workbook with formula examples discussed in this article here.

Reply

89 Ali says:
July 23, 2015 at 5:16 pm

I am trying to create a forumala which will allow me to do the following:

eg. if the figure in A2 IS the greatest column A then it is 10 and if its 2nd Greatest it is 9 etc.

Reply

90 SteveN says:
August 5, 2015 at 11:13 am

Hi

I've copied and modified your example above for finding duplicate values.
my code:
'{=IFERROR(INDEX(expedite_report!$H$8:$H$32000,SMALL(IF($B$21=expedite_report!$A:$A,R
OW(expedite_report!$H$8:$H$32000)-14,""),ROW()-20)),"Error")}

This works very well thank you :)

I have an issue tho'

The worksheet is growing all the time with new rows being added which then impacts
"ROW()-20". The $B$21 increments as new rows are added but the "-20" does not & I'm
loosing results off the top of the array.

How can I modify this code such that the "-20" increments when a new row or rows are
added?

SteveN

Reply

91 SteveN says:
August 6, 2015 at 8:05 am

Hi again:)

After a night thinking about the problem above I have answered my own question.

To increment the "-20" I placed the following in an unused cell on row 20, (in my case this cell
is in a column that is normally hidden).

"=row()"

this shows the row number & updates every time a row is added above it.

I named this cell "row_increment"

Then I adjusted the code above:-

),ROW()-20)),"Error")}

to read:-

),ROW()-row_increment)),"Error")}

So every time I add a new row ABOVE row 20 [=row()] automatically updated the -20 to -21,
-22 etc
My table no longer looses the top row

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 39/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
I hope this makes sense to others.

SteveN

Reply

92 vinodsirohi says:
August 26, 2015 at 2:28 am

I have two tables Main table and Vlookup table. Vlookup table as "place_table". Vlookup table
has three sheets of seperated places sheet1 as Mumbai, sheet2 as Delhi, sheet3 as
Chandigarh.In main table I am using vlookup formulas seperately =vlookup(b2 ,
[place_table.xlsx]Mumabai!1:1048576,2,0), =vlookup(b2 ,
[place_table.xlsx]Delhi!1:1048576,2,0), =vlookup(b2 ,
[place_table.xlsx]Chandigarh!1:1048576,2,0). In main table I have seperate columb which
shows places Mumbai, Delhi and Chandigarh. How can I use this columb to applying only one
formulas to all

for one formula for all three sheets.

Reply

93 Peter D says:
August 29, 2015 at 5:42 am

Great help to me as a novice. Is there anyway you could assist with the following problem;
In a cell I have a date which can be changed eg, Aug 2015, Sep 2015, Oct 2015 etc. This in
essence represents the sheet name containing the main look up table.Is there a variant of the
the vlookup formula below that:
Updates the formula with the date (sheet tab name) based on the selection in the date cell?
EXAMPLE: If Sep 2015 selected in date cell, then return the formula ,=VLOOKUP(A6,'SEP
2015'!$B$5:$L$287,7,FALSE).
If Oct 2015 selected in date cell, then return the formula,=VLOOKUP(A6,'OCT
2015'!$B$5:$L$287,7,FALSE).
Any help would be greatly appreciated thanks!

Reply

94 Raghav says:
August 30, 2015 at 10:53 pm

I have two spresdsheets - one having a customer name in column A and product name in
column d and another spreadsheet having net price for the same criteria. The net price are
different for same product for diffferent customers. I am trying to bring the net price to the
first spreadsheet. What is the formula to use? Thanks

Reply

95 Chand says:
September 14, 2015 at 5:25 am

Dear Sir/Madam
My query is that how I can use ">" & "<" greater than & Less than in single formula in excel
sheet by solving the problem.
QN.:Find the value greater than 250 and Less than 800.
Example:

Name Amount Age

Bill 256.95 56
Joe 125.63 22
Mary 25.66 59
Dave 548.00 21
Frank 489.32 48
Sue 500.25 19
Hillary 368.59 15
Kate 901.56 25
Aleisha $99.95 33

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 40/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
Reply

96 Debbie says:
September 23, 2015 at 6:07 pm

Hi - I have a table with 3 columns: Course Name, Credits and Category

IE
100W 3 GE
117a 4 GE
17a 3 Comp
56 3 Surveys

I have a worksheet with the following columns: Instructor, Course Name, Total Credits

Cindy Miller 17a 3

Shannon Baer 17a 3
Bill Jones 56 3

I created a lookup table to calculate the total credits based on the selected course name and
looking at the credits associated with same in the table.

This works fine.

Now I want to determine the quantity of courses for each Category.

So in the example of Cindy, Shannon and Bill it would look like this:

Category # of Courses
Comp 2 (since course 17a is a category Comp and Shannon and Cindy are teaching)
Surveys 1 (since course 56 is a category Survey and Bill is teaching)

Can't wrap my head around how to get the count of courses offered by category.

thanks for your help

Reply

97 Annik Sergeant says:

September 24, 2015 at 1:36 pm

Dear all am looking for some help

I have a cell with code in it and than a seperated sheet whit the same codes and some
devided lanes exp
cell M17 = TYO
in sheet 2 I have a range A24 untill B 39 were TYO is mentioned 4 times in A and the in B
there is TYO+ each time a different explanation

now I would like to find a formula to place in sheet one M17 is TYO that the various
explanations apeare

Reply

98 kamal Kroor says:

October 3, 2015 at 10:25 am

Hi Alireza,
for post 54. you can use the following array formula without sorting your first column:
=max(if(b2:b15=e2,c2:c15))
use CSE.
Good luck.

Reply

99 Philip Oates says:

October 30, 2015 at 7:47 am

I am quite poor on excel and can do simple VLookups. I need to do one that I think should in
corporate an If function but do not know how. I need it to Vlookup a selection of codes and
return the rate from column 2. However for 1 code I need it to go to one list for the answer,
for all other codes I need it to go to another list for the answer. e.g I have 10 carrier codes 9
https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 41/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
of the codes have a fixed rate - easy but one of the codes has a different rate for every item.
So for the 9 with a fixed rate easy however how do I tell it that if code is this odd one go
lookup on this list but if not go lookup on that list? I have played around for days trying to
work it out. hope that this makes sense

Reply

Fedor Shihantsov (Ablebits.com Team) says:

February 1, 2016 at 3:52 pm

Hello Philip,

I think you can try a combination of IF and COUNTIF functions.

Please see an example with the following formula in this worksheet:

=IF(COUNTIF($I$6:I9,I9)=1,VLOOKUP(I9,$B$6:$C$9,2,FALSE),VLOOKUP(I9,$E$6:$F$9,2,FALSE)
)

https://support.ablebits.com/blog_samples/vlookup-formula-examples_99.xlsx

Reply

100 Lineth says:

November 12, 2015 at 11:31 am

it seems that my formula isnt working ..i use your formula as refference but it always shows
nothing.. anyone please help

=IFERROR(INDEX(E5:E11,SMALL(IF(E2=E5:E11,ROW(F5:F11)-1,""),ROW()-3)),"")

Reply

Fedor Shihantsov (Ablebits.com Team) says:

February 1, 2016 at 3:54 pm

Lineth,

Please make sure you press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to enter the array formula correctly.

Reply

101 octav says:

November 12, 2015 at 12:09 pm

hello,

a have a question based on your example please:

if a have the next situation:

Dan Brown A B
Dan Brown C D
Jeremy Hill T I
Dan Brown R T

and I want to have the next result into another sheet :

Dan Brown A B C D R T
Jeremy Hill T I

How can I do that?

Reply

Fedor Shihantsov (Ablebits.com Team) says:

February 1, 2016 at 3:57 pm

Hello Octav,

Please see our Combine Rows Wizard add-in:

https://www.ablebits.com/excel-combine-rows/index.php
In my opinion it help for your task if the values in columns A and B are merged into one.

Reply

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 42/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
102 pratap says:
November 13, 2015 at 5:29 pm

Below was the table my scope of search

Customer Name Product

Brown Apples
HILL CHock
Brown Sweets
Acey Lollypop
Wolf chikky
Brown Biscuits
Hill Alapino
Wolf Jelly
Hill gems

Search Cell in the same Sheet like the following

$G2 $H2

Dan Brown Apples

Sweets
Biscuits

$G$5

Hill ????
????
?????

wolf

I had used the following formula to get the first set of search:
=IFERROR(INDEX($C$2:$C$16,SMALL(IF($G$2=$B$2:$B$16,ROW($C$2:$C$16)-1,""),ROW()-1)),""
)

I like some help to expand (or) new formula to list all the duplicate values with respect to the
string mention within the Left side, instead of hardcording the right side formula....that is
$G$2

Thanks for looking and trying to help me out...!!!

Reply

Fedor Shihantsov (Ablebits.com Team) says:

February 1, 2016 at 4:28 pm

Hello Pratap,

I recommend sorting the list and adding a column with the following formula:
=IF(COUNTIF($H$5:H5,H5)=1,CONCATENATE(H5," ",I5),I5)

Feel free to download a sample file that shows how it works:

https://support.ablebits.com/blog_samples/vlookup-formula-examples_102.xlsx

Reply

103 Argenis says:

December 7, 2015 at 4:09 pm

Hey,

I loved you instructions! I have one question.

I am using INDEX MATCH to find a cell from another workbook and place the name of the cell
near it. For example:

=INDEX('[Schedule 11.30.15 Hotschedules.xlsx]Sheet1'!$A$8:$A$75,MATCH($B$10,'[Schedule

11.30.15 Hotschedules.xlsx]Sheet1'!$C$8:$C$75,0))

Which works fine. But sometimes the "time" in the cell changes. For example $B$10 is "6:00
AM - 2:00 PM [Breads Sales]" but sometimes I use an employee that is only "6:00 AM - 1:30
PM [Breads Sales]". How can i make INDEX MATCH use 2 lookup values incase the first one

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 43/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
fails?

Reply

Fedor Shihantsov (Ablebits.com Team) says:

February 2, 2016 at 2:37 am

Hello Argenis,

Try the IFERROR function that allows you to return another specified formula if the first one
returns an error:

=IFERROR(INDEX('[Schedule 11.30.15
Hotschedules.xlsx]Sheet1'!$A$8:$A$75,MATCH(_$B$10_,'[Schedule 11.30.15
Hotschedules.xlsx]Sheet1'!$C$8:$C$75,0)),

INDEX('[Schedule 11.30.15
Hotschedules.xlsx]Sheet1'!$A$8:$A$75,MATCH(_$B$11_,'[Schedule 11.30.15
Hotschedules.xlsx]Sheet1'!$C$8:$C$75,0)))

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/IFERROR-function-c526fd07-caeb-47b8-8bb6-
63f3e417f611

Reply

Argenis says:
February 29, 2016 at 8:54 pm

Thank you, It worked wonderfully!!!

Reply

104 Ashwin says:

December 17, 2015 at 7:34 pm

I have a large data for groups for e.g.

GRP_1 GRP_2 GRP_3

98465 5521 65466
65468 6663 6541
68465 6545 36541
65466 8466 6541
65466 9548 65666

and I want to create a list of products and which group it belongs like

Product Groups
5521 ??
6541 ??
6541 ?
6545
6663
8466
9548
36541
65466
65466
65466
65468
65666
68465
98465

Thanks

Reply

Maria Azbel (Ablebits.com Team) says:

January 29, 2016 at 8:45 am

Hello, Ashwin,

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 44/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
Please try this formula:
=IF(ISERROR(MATCH(E2, $A$2:$A$6, 0)), IF(ISERROR(MATCH(E2, $B$2:$B$6, 0)),
IF(ISERROR(MATCH(E2, $C$2:$C$6, 0)), "",$C$1), $B$1), $A$1)

Reply

105 Anjeet Sitoula says:

December 27, 2015 at 5:58 pm

I love this Page.... I am a self learner and got lot of help from this page....

Reply

106 Mubarak Ali says:

January 15, 2016 at 7:44 am

I have 4 columns of Reg. No. Name Subject and Grade. I want to return the grade of specific
subject of a student how can I use the vlookup formula.

Reply

Fedor Shihantsov (Ablebits.com Team) says:

February 2, 2016 at 2:48 am

Hello Mubarak,

Please see the first part of this tutorial which describes examples of problems similar to
yours:
https://www.ablebits.com/office-addins-blog/2014/07/17/excel-vlookup-tutorial-beginner/

Reply

107 Sudhakar says:

February 6, 2016 at 6:13 am

great site......

could you help me with the below query.....

I am doing vlookup, my ref column will have duplicate but I need all their corresponding
items in one single cell line by line... can u help me on this....

Reply

Irina Pozniakova (Ablebits.com Team) says:

February 12, 2016 at 4:09 pm

Hello Sudhakar,

Thank you for your feedback.

I'm sorry, but we don't know of a simple way to get all values in one cell. You may need to
use VBA for this task.

You can get all values in different cells, please see the "Get all duplicate occurrences of the
lookup value" section for a detailed description.

Then you can use the Concatenate function to merge all the values you get into one cell.
Please see this post for more information:
https://www.ablebits.com/office-addins-blog/2015/07/15/excel-concatenate-strings-cells-
columns/

Reply

108 loga says:

February 10, 2016 at 7:06 pm

need your help on this. I want to vlook up for the specific number from another worksheet
but the leftmost value is the combination of samenumber and some text I want the value in
the 4th column. pls help

Reply

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 45/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
Alexander Frolov (Ablebits.com Team) says:
February 12, 2016 at 12:37 pm

Hello, Loga,
To help you better, we need a sample table with your data in Excel. You can email it to
[email protected]. Please add the link to this article and your comment number.

Reply

109 RAMANA says:

February 17, 2016 at 11:38 am

Dear Sir,

I Want to update leave code in attendence sheet according to leave trransaction on the basis
of Employee code and respective dates from start date to end date remaining values in main
sheet should be constant.

Reply

110 srinivas says:

February 22, 2016 at 6:31 am

Dear Sir,

I am doing vlookup in my time sheet there is four sheets i have done 1 sheet only balance 3
sheets i can't find please help me.

Reply

111 Shilpa says:

March 12, 2016 at 8:57 am

Hi,

I'm currently looking for a function, that helps me sum up the numbers corresponding to the
duplicate data in a different worksheet and this value to be brought to another sheet by
vlookup.. In simple terms, a function that sums up and vlookup.

Reply

Post a comment
Name Name

[email protected] E-mail (not published)

Send

Unfortunately, due to the volume of comments received we cannot guarantee that we will be
able to give you a timely response. When posting a question, please be very clear and concise.
We thank you for understanding!

Copyright © 2003 - 2016 Add-in Express Ltd. All rights reserved.

Microsoft and the Office logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United
States and/or other countries.
https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 46/47
12/03/2016 VLOOKUP formula examples: nested vlookup with multiple criteria, 2­way lookup
States and/or other countries.

https://www.ablebits.com/office­addins­blog/2014/07/29/vlookup­formula­examples/ 47/47