This is a guest post by Sohail Anwar.
Let’s not bore you with an intro. You are about to learn a VLOOKUP trick that Lucifer himself would not want you to know. It’s so absurdly powerful that it was developed in a lab and had to be tested on Rocky’s arch nemesis Ivan Drago.
Presenting the Multiple criteria VLOOKUP!
…boring…pass, we’ve seen it.
Oh, have you? Not like this you haven’t. This will change the way you work with Excel.
Let me start with an easy example. Here’s some data and we would love to know what Bb and Dd is.
Easy. Let’s put a helper column in that concatenates the two inputs and do a basic VLOOKUP.
Puh-lease. How boring.
Bye Bye Helper Column, it was nice while it lasted.
With a dash of CHOOSE and sprinkling of Array formulas, we’re about to change the game:
=VLOOKUP($E2,CHOOSE({1,2},$A$2:$A$7&$B$2:$B$7,$C$2:$C$7),2,0) and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter
Without getting into too many details, using the Array creates a makeshift virtual helper column. You don’t have to understand Array formulas to make them work for you. I will lay out the simple structure that you can replicate
VLOOKUP(lookup value, CHOOSE({1,2,...N},Column1 & Column 2 &…& Column N, Result Column),2,0)
Where the lookup value is either something pre-concatenated (like Bb or Dd above) or you are using multiple criteria that you concatenate when entering the lookup value. The CHOOSE structure is easy. Always {1,2} then concatenate (with &) as many columns as you want (that the lookup values will need to look in) and the VLOOKUP’s column number is always 2. Let’s explore another example:
Let’s say we want to look up the Savings Produced for a Director of Grade D who started in 2014. That’s 3 lookup criteria. Let’s follow the structure.
=VLOOKUP(A13&A14&A15,CHOOSE({1,2},A2:A10&B2:B10&C2:C10,D2:D10),2,0) and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter
The two key things to note is that our lookup value is a concatenation of the criteria, in this case I have put the criteria in A13, A14 and A15 (hence A13&A14&A15 is our lookup value). Secondly, in the CHOOSE formula, the ranges in the middle part (A2:A10&B2:B10&C2:C10) have to be concatenated in the same order that the lookup value was concatenated. So we concatenated:
Start Year & Grade & Role
In both the lookup value and lookup columns within the CHOOSE.
I stumbled on this many years ago at work and it is the easiest way to do multiple criteria lookups. Play around and add more criteria…but that’s just the beginning!
When I get that feeling, it’s like Textual Healing
So how can we take this concept and make it even more useful?
First, let me share my story of pain and anguish.
Often when dealing with volumes of text data I make numerous helper columns to deal with the multitude of ways I am presented with names. Anyone who’s reconciled HR data to Finance data for example can appreciate that pain. Finance write their names First Name (column 1) Surname (column 2), then HR provide a spread with Last Name, Surname (column 1), then all of a sudden the Project team join in the fun with First Name, Surname (column 1)! Arrghh!
So I am now left to deal with this chaos via numerous text formulas involving SEARCH, LEFT, RIGHT, MID, LEN and MYSANITY (okay perhaps that last one is my own UDF, my volatile UDF). So, maybe it’s not that bad, but when you’ve been doing it for as long as I have, it gets tedious and you begin to search for efficiency. So, one day like the rebellious closing scene from Dead Poet’s society, I stood on my desk and declared ‘Oh Captain, My Captain’ as I refused to create another ‘helper’ column.
After my colleagues talked me down from the table and reassured me (“There there Sohail, I don’t mind inserting new columns for you occasionally”…”Sure you don’t John, sure you don’t”), I went about finding a less ‘helpful’ way. Would you believe, our new friend the multiple criteria lookup was the answer.
You see, not only can our criteria be cell references but also extra characters! Let’s say we have First Name(Column A), Surname (Column B) and Unique Reference (Column C). Someone gives us a spreadsheet with the names in either a First Name + Surname or Surname, First Name format. We can look this up by including the extra characters in our lookup columns within the CHOOSE.
Look closely at the middle of the CHOOSE since that’s where the magic is. Download the workbook to see the example in action.
We have pretty much instructed the two columns we are looking up to join up in a specific way. First we want them to join up with a space in between. Then the second formula has asked them to join up Surname, comma and space in between, then finally the First Name. So as far as Excel is concerned we have created two virtual helper columns that look like this:
This makes it straightforward for us to look up John Johnson or Johnson, John in them.
There are virtually no bounds to how you can use this Multiple Criteria VLOOKUP. It made my life tremendously easy and I’m sure it makes yours easier too. Do me a favor and let me know in the comments some of the crazy ways you are applying it.
And then if you haven’t already grabbed a copy of Chandoo’s VLOOKUP book I cannot recommend it enough as the ultimate resource in VLOOKUP mastery
Download Example Workbook
Click here to download the example workbook prepared by Sohail. Play with it to learn more.
Added by Chandoo
Thank you Sohail
Thank you Sohail for writing this very useful, incredibly fun tutorial. I am sure our readers will enjoy it as much as I do. Thanks.
If you like this, please say thanks to Sohail.
Related discussion on Multi-conditional lookups
As you can guess, this is not the first time we talked about using multiple conditions in VLOOKUP. Check out below articles for more ideas & tips:
- Multi-condition lookup using Excel
- Using CHOOSE formula to make VLOOKUP go left
- Introduction to SUMIFS & CHOOSE formulas
About the author: Sohail Anwar is a Londoner who has spent over 10,000 hours applying Excel in his professional life and earns well over 6 figures as a result. Now he’s on a mission to teach professionals how to massively increase their earnings by learning and applying Excel like never before. Find out more about Sohail on Earn With Excel or LinkedIn
32 Responses to “More than 3 Conditional Formats in Excel”
Dude,
Long time... whts up , I see that urs is the only business which is posting a "Excel" lent growth in this recessionary market....
Still alive ... so you will be able to reach me if make an attempt... 🙂
V E R Y N I C E !!!!
Hi Chandoo.
When I use your macro in my file, I keep getting a Compile Error because the "cell" variable is not defined.
Any suggestions?
@Lincoln: Did you have "option explicit" on?
I am sorry, I didn't define the cell variable.
you can add this line to the code just below the line "dim i"
dim cellLet me know if you still get this error...
Ah. I've simply declared cell as a range.
All good now
Noob at work.
Thanks for the article. Very helpful. 🙂
very, very helpful. I didn't know what "define named ranges" meant. one of my colleagues figured it out. I suggest you add the instruction "go to menu - insert/name/define and then make sure the cells at the bottom of the box change to reflect new values if you redefine the range." thanks.
Quite Intresting. If anyone could help. I am trying to do something like this but i want to define values and colours of the value in a range of cells ( Similiar) but i want the other cells to change colour when the value is same as the range defined. ANy help. I want instantaneous( Like conditional formatting) not like running macro.
@Jahabar: Welcome to PHD and thanks for the comments.
If your source range and target range have same dimensions and source range has 4 different formats (conditional formatting limitation, unless you are using excel 2007) you can do this. If you have more than 4 formats then you may have to use VBA (and create an event like worksheet_change and monitor the range).
Let me know if you come across a simple non-vba solution for this. 🙂
very nice post...
May I suggest a little modification of the code?
Adding "Application.ScreenUpdating = False" at the beggining of the macro and "Application.ScreenUpdating = True" at the end speeds up significantly the whole procedure. As well as omitting "Operation:=xlNone, SkipBlanks:=False, Transpose:=False".
Not a big deal in this example, but when formatting a larger range of cells, the difference is marked. I've tried to format the number 1457 of cells and the formatting was done 11 seconds faster. :-O
[...] you can overcome the conditional formatting limitation using VBA macros (again, if you are new to excel, you may want to wait few weeks before plunging in to [...]
Hi Chandoo
Thanks for this macro. I have done few changes to this macro to suit my needs. I had removed the defined names data2use and conditions2use to ActiveWindow.RangeSelection.Address
This way I can select the cells that require conditional formatting and then run the macro.
Kind Regards,
Vasanth
Chandoo, I am using 2007. I noticed the conditional formatting options are different - and they have some built in funtictions for stop light displays, and other dashboard type elements. My question is this, I need to display more colors in the stop light than the standard 3. The World Health Org (WHO) has a Pandemic Flu alert level between 0-6, so i wanted to drive a sharepoint dashboard using excel based on 7 distinct levels. Suggestions?
@ASM: very good idea. you can use font based symbols instead of excel traffic light icons to achieve this. the character "=" becomes a small circle when you change the font to "webdings". So you just need to insert a bunch of = signs and use conditional formatting to change the font color. If you need to combine numbers with symbols, then you can use 2 columns instead of one and format them accordingly. Let me know if you need some more help with this.
Also, if possible, share with us your dashboard when it is ready.
[...] Once we calculate values for all team members using the above formula, we can apply conditional formatting to make the heat map. In Excel 2007, this is one step. In earlier versions of excel, you need to specify 3 conditions to make the heatmap look hot enough or use a macro to get over the 3 conditional formats limitation. [...]
Chandoo,
Why do you use the "conditions2use" since you can change the VBA and replace "conditions2use" with "data2use" and you won't have to create a zone for conditional formating equal to the data zone.
The Data will be formated according the "formats2use". Just one thing, if you plan to have some "0" on your data zone, they will be formated like the first cell above your "formats2use" (the green cell with "Formats" inside in your exemple".
That's why you should leave a white empty cell above the first cell of the "formats2use" zone.
Regards,
Pitichat
Seeing as no one has posted what they actually might use something like this for here's my 2cents;
I used the same concepts to build a heatmap of a casino gaming floor, with each populated cell representing a gaming machine (Slot Machine), some simple metric bucketing to determine different shades for the cells, user selectable colours, ability to pick a 'machine' (click on a cell) and repaint the 'floor' showing only machines with similar charateristics, select a value range and repaint the 'floor' showing only the 'machines' within the value range. Users could switch between metrics and repaint the the floor.
It took a while to put together, but once in use was rolled out to four casinos and used for 4 years. It provided a portable (i.e. no custom software), easy to understand way to manage product from individual machine to groups / classes of product and made it very easy to see how products were performing in geographic relation to each other (something that tables & graphs can't easily do)
Needless to say it "wowed" many people who only saw Excel as a tool for managing numbers and table based reports
Being excel just about any user could maintain spreadsheet.
@ Justin B - Hey Justin, that counds AWESOME! Can I get a copy of the casino tracker, I work within a similar industry and would love to see how you've constructed it.
Also, from using this heatmap, I think I'm getting confused. To make the map change color, I thought you had to change the DATA2USE cells, but I see it only changes if you change the vales of thew cells within the CONDITIONS2USE cells. Am I thinking this wrong?????
Thanks all, this is REALLY making my life easier!!
Hi Dude,
Thanks for this very useful macro. That was very helpful.
Kepp up the good work.
Cheers.
Explanation like yours is so important to everyone that want to learn more and more in Excel. Thanks a lot. You are the man ! 🙂
[...] http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/10/14/more-than-3-conditional-formats-in-excel/ [...]
Chandoo,
If I wanted to replace the numbers 1-9 with text A-I, what would I need to do to the macro to make it work correctly?
Thanks!
@Lee
If the numbers are alone and not part of larger numbers >10 or with text you can simply use this formula
=CHAR(A1+64)Change A1 to your cell
Copy Down/Across as required
Then select the new cells and copy/paste as Values over themselves.
I'm trying to do a drop down list that will allow me to select a color and when I select that color it will change my cell to that color. i cannot use contion formating because I have 5 colors. Can you help me with this?
thanks
This tool was great. Can you please suggest a way to include conditions like if value in a cell lies in a range color some other cell red.
What do I need to change in the programing if I have a mix of numbers and letters. Example; 5003, 2B01, W005, 1020. I think the problem is the CInt code but I'm not sure.
EXCELlent - was able to use your macro with no problems. Found that modifying it to use the DATA2USE range achived the same result as using the condition2use range. If the two ranges were equal, your way allows the data range to have completely different values and still have the same color format at the end.
My data is a little different
I have an irregular shaped building with students in it.
I have a list of students assigned to the rooms with the courses they are on
and a color code for the courses
would there be a way of using indirect to translate the student names to color code the rooms to what courses they are on?
[...] hi Check below link More than 3 Conditional Formats in Microsoft Excel - How to? | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel O... [...]
The ability to conditional format a range of cells based on criteria in a different, but matching for size, range of cells is exactly what I've been looking for. Unfortunately the macro falls over at the line conditions (i) = CInt (cell.value). I have specified the 3 rangenames, working in excel 2003 but cannot get it to work. Any ideas. I've checked rangenames several times (0-16 being used) but no luck. Thanks
Hello you also can use this code to force ur worksheet to run with more then on condition.
in this case the condition = case like in example if u want to format something between of the range 0 to 100 for a color
Set I = Intersect(Target, Range("B2:B8")) <-- thatch the rage u want to work with just set it up for range of cell u want to use to format
the second formula will show u Interior color nr index just time it and when u format the cell with a color it will show nr in the cell
enjoy
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)Set I = Intersect(Target, Range("B2:B8"))
If Not I Is Nothing Then
Select Case Target
Case 0 To 100: NewColor = 37 ' light blue
Case 101 To 200: NewColor = 46 ' orange
Case 201 To 300: NewColor = 12 ' dark yellow
Case 301 To 400: NewColor = 10 ' green
Case 401 To 600: NewColor = 3 ' red
Case 601 To 1000: NewColor = 20 ' lighter blue
End Select
Target.Interior.ColorIndex = NewColor
End If
End Sub
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
Range("F1:F1") = Range("F1:F1").Interior.ColorIndex
End Sub
Hi Chandoo,
I tried to add the "More than 3 conditional formats for Excel" VBA macro
to my Excel 2008 for Mac and it didn't work. Would this VBA macro work
with Excel 2011 for Mac? Does it have to be a certain version: Student,
Home & Office, or Standard?
Thanks for your help.
Tom
[…] here is one vba macro that might be better if need lots of cases http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/10/14/more-than-3-conditional-formats-in-excel/ […]