In this post we will learn how to use the Advanced Filter option using VBA to allow us to filter our data on a separate sheet. This has been requested by a lot of our readers and here is how we will use them.
What we need to get this done.
1. Some data that we need filtering on.
2. Define what options we need as drop down lists
3. A cup of coffee
In the sample data, I have defined 4 options to be available as drop down list; this has been done by creating a new sheet called as “Master”. I then copied the existing columns data into this sheet and used the Remove Duplicates feature to get the unique list of items that was required for the drop downs.
The named ranges were created using the INDEX function as shown below
| Named Range | Formula |
| prd | =Master!$A$2:INDEX(Master!$A:$A,COUNTA(Master!$A:$A)) |
| rgn | =Master!$B$2:INDEX(Master!$B:$B,COUNTA(Master!$B:$B)) |
| cust | =Master!$C$2:INDEX(Master!$C:$C,COUNTA(Master!$C:$C)) |
| agnt | =Master!$D$2:INDEX(Master!$D:$D,COUNTA(Master!$D:$D)) |
Now we need to setup the sheet where we need the filtered data to be displayed. Headings were put in cells B5 to B8 and the drop down (using the Data Validation—List) feature was put in cells C5 to C8. Now we need to create or criteria fields in the RawData sheet, this is a requirement and cannot be any place else. When you use the Advanced Filter dialog box and try to place the output onto another sheet Excel will display a message saying “You can only copy data to the Active Sheet”. We will overcome this limit by using VBA and telling Excel where to put the filtered data. I used the cells M1 to P1 to define the headings and cells M2 to P2 to get the actual options from the “Filter Sheet”
| Cells | Formula |
| M2 | =Filter!C5 |
| N2 | =Filter!C6 |
| O2 | =Filter!C7 |
| P2 | =Filter!C8 |
Macro to run advanced filter and extract data
Sub FilterData()
Sheets("Filter").Select
Range("B10").Select
Range(Selection, Selection.End(xlToRight)).Select
Range(Selection, Selection.End(xlDown)).Select
Selection.Clear
Sheets(“RawData”).Range(“Table1[#All]”).AdvancedFilter Action:=xlFilterCopy, CriteriaRange:= _
Sheets(“RawData”).Range(“M1:P2”), CopyToRange:=Sheets(“Filter”).Range(“B10”), Unique:=True
Columns.AutoFit
Range(“B10”).Select
End Sub
First we ensure the current filtered data (in any) is cleared out before we run the code again and then we get the new filtered data from cell B10 onwards. Now let’s understand the actual code that filters our data here.
Sheets("RawData").Range("Table1[#All]").AdvancedFilter
Action:=xlFilterCopy,
CriteriaRange:=Sheets("RawData").Range("M1:P2"),
CopyToRange:=Sheets("Filter").Range("B10"),
Unique:=True
We converted our raw data into an excel table (Structured Reference Structured Reference), by doing this we no longer need to know how many rows our data actually goes down to, the “Table1[#All]” takes care of that for us.
We also need to specify that our data is in another sheet and we are trying to run Advanced Filter on that data range, this is done using the first line ” Sheets(“RawData”).Range(“Table1[#All]”).AdvancedFilter “.
Next we specify the action that we need which is Copy in our case, the other option is “xlFilterInPlace” which would filter right on our data itself.
Then we have specified the Criteria Range (which needs to be on the same sheet where the data is).
And finally we have specified where the output has to be sent to by using : “CopyToRange:=Sheets(“Filter”).Range(“B10″)”
We have also made sure that only Unique records are returned to us by turning Unique:=True.
Download Advanced Filter Demo File
Click here to download the demo file & use it to understand this technique.
Do you use Advanced filters to extract sub-sets of data?
Advanced filters are very powerful and very simple to setup. I use them often to quickly extract what I want.
What about you? Do you use them often? Please share your experiences, techniques & ideas using comments.
Learn more about extracting / consolidating data using VBA
Data extraction and consolidation are one of the most common activities done by reporting professionals & analysts. No wonder we speak about these areas a lot here too. Please check out these pages to learn more:
- Split an excel file in to many using Advanced Filters & VBA [with video]
- Move data from one sheet to many using VBA
- Split text on new line using VBA
- Consolidate data from multiple files in to one using VBA Macros
Want to lean more? Consider joining our VBA Classes
If you would like to learn more about VBA programming, Excel automation, creation of user forms, manipulating data in Access thru Excel etc., consider joining our online VBA Classes. This step-by-step program helps you become awesome in VBA.
30 Responses to “Rescue oddly shaped data – Battle between Formulas, VBA and Power Query”
Nice use of Power Query! Power Query is simply awesome! But somehow a lot of people are punishing themselves by not using it (not learning it).
An imperfect 4th approach for consideration... no codes at all...
Select myrange.
Go to Special --> Blank
Delete Cell --> Shift cell left
90% done... now we just need to move the data of 2nd column to the bottom of 1st column
Of course... Power Query is the best.
Cheers,
There is another way but it involves multiple steps:
Copy the values in column E, move the cursor to F5, Paste Special with Skip Blanks, OK
Copy the values in column D, move the cursor to F8, Paste Special with Skip Blanks, OK
And so on.
This works perfectly, albeit a little clumsily apart from the values in B17 and C16, which can be moved with simple copy and paste
Power Query Forever! I do not know how I survived for so long without knowing and using this tool, I can not recommend it to my colleagues, but by the way they prefer to suffer to learn.
My congratulations here from Brazil.
I rolled my eyes when I saw that data
Using decimal places is a nice trick to order data, thanks for that
And tweaking the first formula a bit, you can use OFFSET instead of INDIRECT
=OFFSET($A$1, MIN(IF(myrange, ROW(myrange)), ROWS(A$1:A1))-1, RIGHT(TEXT(MIN(IF(myrange, ROW(myrange) + COLUMN(myrange)*0.00001), ROWS(A$1:A1)), ".00000"), 5)-1)
Tried the above formula with the downloaded oddly shaped data file and I could not get it to work. I get #value without ctrl+shift+enter, and #ref with ctrl+shift+enter.
Sorry, it was SMALL, not MIN.
Add with CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER.
Thank you for your formula. Like the indirect formula I tested this one in older versions of EXCEL and it worked without ALTERATION in EXCEL 95. Very impressive.
Too complicated
Use =Sum to summarize all the sells to the left and Bobs Your Uncle
@Bertie... I am afraid that won't work when you have more than one value in a row.
I tested this formula in versions of Excel all the way back to Excel 95
=IF(ISERROR(INDIRECT("R"&SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(MyRange"",ROW(MyRange)+COLUMN(MyRange)*0.00001),ROWS(A$1:A9)),"00000.00000"),".","C"),FALSE)),"",(INDIRECT("R"&SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(MyRange"",ROW(MyRange)+COLUMN(MyRange)*0.00001),ROWS(A$1:A9)),"00000.00000"),".","C"),FALSE)))
So there are multiple ways of cleaning up messy data by formulas.
Wow.. Excel 95. Who knew people still use that. But as you have shown, Excel has all these beautiful and powerful functions for 23 years. It has data sciency stuff before DS was even a thing.
I had a problem with pasting the formula in the original post.
Formula should be: =IF(ISERROR(INDIRECT("R"&SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(myrange"",ROW(myrange)+COLUMN(myrange)*0.00001),ROWS(A$1:A1)),"00000.00000"),".","C"),FALSE)),"",(INDIRECT("R"&SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(myrange"",ROW(myrange)+COLUMN(myrange)*0.00001),ROWS(A$1:A1)),"00000.00000"),".","C"),FALSE)))
EXCEL even in a 16 bit version, is a very robust and capable program.
I don't like the VBA code. If you have a blank row in MyRange, the last entry in the range is doubled up in the paste.here range.
Not really. The macro is writing one cell at a time from paste.here. You have to clean the range before, which I was too lazy to write. But a line like Range(range("paste.here"), range("paste.here").end(xldown)).clearcontents should do the trick.
Adding Range(range("paste.here"), range("paste.here").end(xldown)).clearcontents fixed the problem.
for step split column by delimiter i am not getting option of split into rows or columns. Can you help me in this
Thanks Chandoo for promoting Power Query.
To simplify further, you can "Unpivot Columns" instead of right click on the newly created column and split it by comma in to rows in step 3 of Power Query.
i used
=LOOKUP(10000,B5:F5)
and got the answers. I just plagiarized this formula somewhere and use it, maybe you can explain why it works.
Regards
@Johan... I am not sure if the formula works correctly. When I tested it with the sample data in this post, it showed #N/As in two cells. Essentially, it will only give first value in each row. So if a row has multiple values, then subsequent values are missed. LOOKUP() function goes thru a list and finds the first value that is less than or equal to the input - in this case 10000 in B5:F5.
I have the need to convert pdf's to excel on occasion and they often come out a mess like this. I have used:
Cell G2 =COUNT(myrange)
Cell G3 =IFERROR(IF(G2-1<1,"",G2-1),"") copied down to G100
Cell H2 =IFERROR(LARGE(myrange,G2),"") copied down to H100
Waouw...
=IFERROR(INDIRECT("R" & SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(myrange "", ROW(myrange) + COLUMN(myrange)*0.00001),
ROWS(A$1:A1)), "00000.00000"), ".", "C"), FALSE), "")
but CTRL Shift Enter with {} before and after 🙂 😀
Here's a way with pivot table
https://www.bookkempt.com/2018/02/aligning-non-contiguous-data.html
This is brilliant. Bookmarked 🙂
Another possibility.
This assumes that you have a row index 'k' to use in the SMALL function and a column index 'h' to identify the columns of 'myRange'.
If you define 'coord' to refer to
=k+h/10 [assuming h<10]
then it will be possible to recover values later based upon location within 'myRange'. The formula 'nb' that identifies non-blanks by coordinates is given by
= SMALL( IF(myRange"", coord), k )
Finally, to unpick the pieces
= INDEX( myRange, INT(nb), 10*MOD(nb, 1) )
Whilst I am here and making trouble the PQ solution is also a tad over-complicated. All that is needed is to unpivot the entire table and remove the Attribute column.
The advanced editor would show
let
Source = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="myRange"]}[Content],
#"Unpivoted Columns" = Table.UnpivotOtherColumns(Source, {}, "Attribute", "Value"),
#"Removed Columns" = Table.RemoveColumns(#"Unpivoted Columns",{"Attribute"})
in
#"Removed Columns"
1.fill the blank cells with 0
2.the requested column value=sum of those mess number column
but this can be used in only one column has value
Chandoo
And if we use the formula SEARCH (100000000, B5: F5)
JC
Another approach with Power Query, it will still work if the number of columns changed:
let
Source = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="myrange"]}[Content],
#"Added Custom" = Table.AddColumn(Source, "List", each Record.ToList(_)),
#"Removed Other Columns" = Table.SelectColumns(#"Added Custom",{"List"}),
#"Expanded LIst" = Table.ExpandListColumn(#"Removed Other Columns", "List"),
#"Filtered Rows" = Table.SelectRows(#"Expanded LIst", each ([List] null))
in
#"Filtered Rows"
Cool idea to use Record.ToList as added column. Thanks for sharing this.
Nowadays, you can just use TOCOL on Excel 2024, MS 365, and Web Excel. It has a parameter to ignore blanks/errors/both.