Occasionally we deal with data that is so uncooperative that we might as well give up and go back to calculators & ledger books.
Recently I found myself in such a situation and learned something new.
Introducing … data that won’t play nice
Drum roll please. Here is a data-set that I got from somewhere.
The problem – build a lookup formula
And the problem. Oh, simple. Write a lookup formula to find how many customer walk-ins we have on any given day.
But how?
After wrestling with a few variations of VLOOKUP, INDEX, MATCH, OFFSET… I found the right formula for this occasion.
SUMIFS Formula
That’s right, the good old (well, its just 7 years old, born in 2007 Excel) is the one that works in this situation.
Assuming our data is in the range:
- B4:H15
- Even rows (4,6,8…14) containing date
- Odd rows (5,7,9…) containing customer walk-ins
- And lookup date is in L5
We can use this SUMIFS formula:
=SUMIFS(B5:H15,B4:H14,L5)
to find out how many customers walked in to the store on the lookup date.
How does this formula work?
See this illustration.
Since SUMIFS (and SUMIF too) formula works in 2D, our formula works elegantly.
Any caveats?
There are a couple of problems with this formula.
- It works for looking up numbers only
- It doesn’t work if any of the numbers are same as dates we are looking up. For example 15th October 2014 is 41927, so we have a data point that is also 41927, then our SUMIFS result would be wrong.
A better formula?
If you want a formula that works with any type of data, then of course we can come up with one.
That is your home work.
Go ahead and figure it out and share your magic potions in the comments.
Here is a clue: If we cant go somewhere directly, we can go indirectly, if we know the address.
Download Example Workbook
Click here to download the example workbook. Examine the formula in cell L6 to understand how this works.
How do you deal with such data?
Badly shaped data is everywhere. Not a week goes by when I don’t come across poorly structured data. Thanks to Excel, I can alter the shape of almost any data. My favorite techniques are – text import, power query, formulas, pivot tables, remove duplicates & go to special.
What about you? How do you deal with poorly structured data? What tools do you deploy to alter the fitness levels of your data? Please share your thoughts and tips in comments.
Don’t forget about the formula challenge.
Excel not co-operating? Its time you tamed it
Data that is messy, bosses with high expectations, coffee machines that don’t work are everywhere. Fortunately Excel can fix 2 of those 3 problems. (Sorry folks, there is no fixCoffeeMachine() macro, yet.)
Learn a few Excel tricks & concepts and you could be on your way to taming messy data & demanding bosses. Start with these:
30 Responses to “Great News: Chandoo becomes MVP”
Congratulations! It's well deserved. 🙂
This is amazing. Hearty congratulations and a rocking new year ahead!!!
Congrats! I have learnt alot from your site... and the most important is learning how to achieve the most with the simplest concepts.
Thanks for the excel calendar. Is it possible to get a simple big fonted calendar printable on an A4 size paper without any distracive notes or visuals? BTW, I have already signed up for your newsletter. With warm regards and
Gratefully yours
50+ year old CHarish.
Hey Chandoo,
Great to hear that. Congratulations! The best new year gift, I would say. Keep it up, u've been doing extraordinary work for the excel users community.
Regards,
Pankaj Verma
Congrats dude... fantastic news!
congratulations! your site is great, this is well deserved
Rich
I recently found your site, I visit many. The tips that you provide are in the top 1% of all the sites I visit. Keep on Excelling.
Arnold
South Africa
Congratulations, Chandoo! That's a great way to start the year and make the PHD even better.
Congratulations, Chandoo.
Your site is one of most useful on the net. Happy new year and lot of ideas you will present for us.
Congrats.
Just read your name in an email from Abhishek. Well deserved.
Congratulations, and Happy New Year.
Greetings from Rio de Janeiro my friend! You trully deserve it!
Nive way to start 2009! Keep up the good work!
FC
That was quite forseeable , so you have now really got your PhD in excel.
Anyways Chandoo you have made excel a real Fun doo
I will like you to write some more on INDEX and MATCH function in near future.
@Hey Chandoo ! Congrates....
Ab to treat mangta hai !
Well deserved Chandoo!!
Congrat's!! Very well deserved 🙂
i always browsed mr.excel and used to see MVP writtne below names of people who used to solve queries in excel forum there......i just used to admire as to what they have special in them that they are MVP......
but now i got my answer...............u deserve it man..........
@All: thanks everyone 🙂
Congratulations Chandoo, nice job!
Chandoo,
A well deserved recognition and a good start to the New Year. Continue your good work.
Subbu
Many Congratulations.
You deserve a Ph.D. 🙂
congrats.....
Congrats dude. Rock on!
[...] charting community in 2007 and has been growing strongly ever since. In year 2009, I have received the MVP award from Microsoft. Just few days back I have become a dad [...]
Respected sir,
I am impressed!.... Good job done.. Keep it up...
Sir, How to be a MVP certified person. What level of knowledge is required for it? send me links if possible.
Please reply...
Regards,
Dipak Khalasi.
Dipak -
The first thing you need to cultivate is the ability to search the web effectively. You could start by Googling "Microsoft MVP".
[...] boy and girl which has been made hectic and incredibly fun ever since to their life.He has been awarded MVP status in 2009 by Microsoft(and renewed in 2010,2011 & 2012).His MVP profile is here.If you want to contact him direct then [...]
Congrats Chandoo!!
[…] Chandoo becomes MVP […]