Last night I got an email from Joshua, one of our readers with the subject – Hard Excel problem. Hard?!?, at this stage of summer, the hard problems seem to be (in no particular order),
- Lack of good quality mangoes to eat
- Intense heat and humidity
- Lack of good quality mangoes to eat
Yes, I like mangoes.
Any how, back to Joshua’s email, So I got curious and read it. He is facing an interestingproblem.
I have a very difficult inquiry I am hoping you might be able to solve…
Is there a formula (i.e., without using VBA) that will look at another columns values and provide a new sequential number (i.e., reordered) when the value changes; however, keep the same sequential number for the duplicates?
Below is a table with two columns. […] I now need to rank order those cluster groups. Since cluster 12 appears first it would get a value of ‘1’ and all of the cluster 12’s should now be a ‘1’. Since cluster 4 appears next it would get a rank of 2, etc…
Well, it is an interesting problem for sure. But hard problem, it isn’t. For really hard problems, refer to my list above.
So how to generate the sequence numbers?
Logic: If a value is already listed, we fetch corresponding sequence number. Else, we generate a new sequence number.
Implementation: Simple, we use VLOOKUP.
Assuming the cluster values are in column B, from B4 onwards, in C4, write
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(B4,$B$3:C3,2,FALSE), SUM(MAX($C$3:C3),1))
Let’s examine the formula.
VLOOKUP(B4,$B$3:C3,2,FALSE) portion: This one looks value in column B and tries to find corresponding sequence value in column C.
SUM(MAX($C$3:C3),1) portion: Gives us next sequence number
IFERROR(VLOOKUP(…), SUM(…)) portion: This does the magic of choosing either existing sequence number or generating a new one.
For more, read about VLOOKUP and IFERROR formulas.
Sequence number generation – Example spreadsheet
Play with the sequence number generation spreadsheet embedded below or Click here to grab a copy of the file.
How would you generate the sequence numbers?
Its your turn to take a crack at the hard problem. How would you solve it? Go ahead and share your answers in the comments.
More hard problems – solved:
Hard problems are not new at Chandoo.org. We take lob vlookups and sumproducts regularly to crack them. Here are few examples:
23 Responses to “Learn Top 10 Excel Features”
What it looks like if excel without formula?? 🙂
It would be not excel it would just be fancy tables in which you could just use power point. (Chandoo) would Access be an alternative?
Awesome piece of work!!!
Great article.
Chandoo - my biggest interest in the article was the awesome word-graphic at the top - where did you go to get it done into a shape?
@Rich.. thank you. I used http://www.tagxedo.com/ to generate this word cloud. I took all the comments in the original post, pasted them in tagxedo website and set up the shape etc.
Awesome Chandoo.. You need always needs coffee to start up with. BTW , how did u created the Heart Shaped picture filled with High Repetitive text in it .. Please put it on your Next blog ...
Chandoo, good article. I’ve added a link to it from Connexion – our collection of the most useful and interesting spreadsheet-related articles from the web. See http://www.i-nth.com/resources/connexion
Hi,
Just one small question. Where the hell have been I in the past for not discovering this website sooner?
I've lost a job interview recently where even though I had the subject knowledge, I was not upto their mark in Excel.
Thank you for all the free tips, guidance and for creating this forum environment.
[PS: I've just been through the site for the 1st time, and have signed up for the newsletter. You can expect pretty stupid questions from me soon]
Hy Chandoo, you always inspire me with to explore something new in excel. This data structure table is only for excel 2007 or compatible to 2010. I recently installed latest excel version 2013 in my System and experience problems regarding operating according to previous one. I'm waiting your article relates to that excel version.
Thanks
Awesome article Mr. Chandoo and that is a awesome heart shaped pic you created. Great tips as well.
[...] Learn Top 10 Excel Features | Chandoo.org – Learn Microsoft Excel Online. [...]
Chandoo is awesome..
Thanks, i got better, And i always get 90.50 in my grade card but now i get 96.50 i improved because of the tutorials you gave, Thank You Very Much Chandoo Guy.
Hi chandoo, i am intersted in seeing the video or step by step done procedure of analysing the comments and presenting in the data percentage steps. I think this one would be first step in finding out how generally happens data calculation. Thank you.
As well i would like to know how to get that black shape art of your face which i see in chandoo. I am interested in making it for me.
Nice to see the features considered by Excel users to be most useful. It might be a good idea to also analyze StackOverflow Excel questions to see what keywords appear most often.
Here are my top 10 Excel Features (for advanced users):
http://www.analystcave.com/excel-10-top-excel-features/
Thanks a ton for this it totally helped with my homework ????
Very good effort
Thank you for this. Lots of learning in the links you've provided for this septuagenarian.
Pls send me new post
Dude, your humor ? ?
Loved your work.
Hello Sir,
I am Sanjeev Khakre and i from Indore City, India , I am your big follower and i have watch your videos and learnt a lots of excel trick or function and many more . thanks so much for all of your excellent support.
Your excel knowledge is real awesome.
Thanks
Sanjeev
Your work is excellent but pls willing to know more details about the features of microsoft excel
Chandoo Would Access be a better alternative than VB?