Alert readers of chandoo.org would have noticed that I have been away from action for a week. You are right. I took an unexpected break this week. I was commissioned to do an important baby sitting project. And you know how difficult they can be. So for the last one week Jo (my wife) and I were taking care of 4 kids – 2 ours and 2 my wife’s elder sister’s. It was mostly fun, but at times really annoying too. Naturally, I did not get much computer time.
In my absence, I have asked Hui to make a post or two. And I see that he has done an awesome job writing about Form controls & Hyperlinks – 2 of the very useful features in Excel that are rarely well explained.
March 2011 is best month since starting this blog
In other news, I just checked the statistics for the month of March and realized that, wait for it….
Yes, March 2011 is the best month since I started this blog. We have surpassed several previous records for traffic, conversations, connections and revenue.
Here is the report card of Chandoo.org for last 13 months (March 2010 – March 2011):
Thank you very much for making this happen.
All the things that I do on this site mean very little with out you. You constantly inspire me to learn and share more. I wake up with a smile and go thru my day with vigor and go back to sleep with a content heart, all because of you. Thank you very much for all that you do to Chandoo.org.
About the Dashboard Week
I have not forgotten about your contributions. In fact, I am overwhelmed by the response I got. There were more than 20 entries and I am still processing all that you have shared. I will put up a massive post sharing all the content, ideas and snapshots on Dashboards by next week.
Mandatory Bonus Excel Tip
You are not only visiting my site to hear me rant about how difficult is it to baby sit my rowdy kids. You also want to learn a bit of Excel. So here we go:
Unlock the hidden MVLOOKUP formula
We all gripe about how VLOOKUP returns only first match. We want to get all the matching results. But how?!?
Thankfully, there is a formula called MVLOOKUP that Microsoft did not want you to find. So they hid it deep inside Excel. But just like everything else, we can unlock the MVLOOKUP formula too.
Follow this simple procedure:
- In the cell where you want MVLOOKUP formula, just type =M V L O O K U P(value you are looking for, table of data, column number, false) and press CTRL+SHIFT+Enter.
- Note1: You must include spaces between each letter in the MVLOOKUP.
- Note2: You must use the CTRL and SHIFT keys located on the left side of keyboard only.
- Note3: This works in Excel 2007 and Windows machines only.
- When you press CTRL+SHIFT+Enter, you will see that excel has returned an array of values corresponding the value you are looking for.
If the formula doesn’t work:
If you are getting #NAME or some other error try quitting Excel and restart it. But this time, when clicking on Excel icon, hold Alt key.
or use an alternative method to fetch 2nd or 3rd matching value using VLOOKUP.
That is all
You have a fantastic weekend. I should be able to greet you on Monday with a fun Excel nugget.
24 Responses
I’d suggest simply using the subtotal function and filtering the data using the Win/Loss column. You get the same results and the formula is more comprehensible.
@John
That is one option.
There are times however when you want to see the whole data table or a filtered subset and still want to produce summary reports against an unfiltered field.
Is there a particular reason why you are using a comma and the unary (–) operator for the second array in the SUMPRODUCT formula? It seems to work the same if you were to string the arrays together using the asterisk (*). The advantage is that SUMPRODUCT treats the entire string of arrays as a single array.
@Mathew
Your correct, There is no difference.
I thought it may have been easier to explain this method.
Is there a way to do this on a large set of data? As in ~100,000 rows? When I try I get an error because the formula becomes too long. It says the max length of a formula is 8,192 characters. Excel 2010.
How do I incorporate a specific text within a cell for the second array. For instance, – -(C7:C13=”Apple”)
when I chose a specific text the formula does not work.
@RB
I am not sure what is the issue as if I use the sample data in the post the following work fine
Count:
=SUMPRODUCT(SUBTOTAL(3,OFFSET(C7:C13,ROW(C7:C13)-MIN(ROW(C7:C13)),,1)), –(C7:C13=”L”))
Sum:
=SUMPRODUCT(SUBTOTAL(3,OFFSET(C7:C13,ROW(C7:C13)-MIN(ROW(C7:C13)),,1)),(C7:C13=”L”)*(D7:D13))
You may want to check that there are no leading or trailing spaces in your list of Apples
I should have given a better explanation. Heres my situation. I have a column with cells filled with names like Column 1, Column 2, Pier 1, Pier 2, etc. If the cell just contained Pier and searched for that it works. But because it has other characters in the cell its not recognizing the pier. So how can I extract specific characters of a string of text in this formula?
Hopefully this was a better explanation
Hello-
This formula works pretty well for me except that it slow down excel and prevents some of my macros from working. I was wondering if there was a way to program this in VBA so that excel isn’t always trying to recalculate it. I would like to use a push of a button to get it to run then paste in a cell.
Thanks!
I am trying to sum filtered data in a column, but would want to ignore the negative values in the column. How to go about doing this?
@Akshay
Why not just add a filter to that column to only show the values greater than zero?
The negative values are required for reporting purposes, but their effect on the total is distorting the required output. Please advise.
@Akshay
I’d suggest making a post in the Chandoo.org Forums
http://forum.chandoo.org/
Attach a sample file to simplify the task
I have this working for counting and summing, however, I have a list and for the second array, I need a criteria. That is, I’m looking for b13:b200=”01.??.??” or =left((a1,2) or something like that. These types of criteria matches do not appear to work as I get a blank as a result.
Thanks!
@Bob
As your formula b13:b200=”01.??.??” looks like you are trying to check the first day of the month of the range
What about trying Day(B13:B200)=1
Hai Experts,
i understood this formula well and working fine in MS Excel 2013
but when the same am trying to place in google Spreadsheet it shows error as
“SUMPRODUCT has mismatched range sizes. Expected row count: 1. column count: 1. Actual row count: 2014, column count: 1.” and as a result #VALUE! Appears in cell.
Can anyone please help me how would i get it done in Google Spread sheet
or is there any other formula as a substitute for this.
Thank you very much.
thanks for providing this.. but why does excel keeps on prompting Circular referencing in cell D3?
@Vivek
I don’t know
I just downloaded the file and it is working fine and not showing that error
Goto the Formulas, Calculation Options Tab and check that Calculation is set to Automatic
What version of Excel and Windows are you using ?
I know that this forum is for MS Excel, but I am trying to help someone who is working in Google Sheets. The below formula works in Excel but Google Sheets returns:
“SUMPRODUCT has mismatched range sizes. Expected row count: 1. column count: 1. Actual row count: 39000, column count: 1.” and as a result #VALUE! Appears in cell.
This is the same problem asked by Srichirin above. Does anyone know if there is a formula for Google Sheets that will replicate what MS Excel does?
=SUMPRODUCT(SUBTOTAL(3,OFFSET($C$6:$C$39500,ROW($C$6:$C$39500)-MIN(ROW($C$6:$C$39500)),,1)),- -($C$6:$C$39500=H1),($D$6:$D$39500))
Trying to find a SUMPRODUCT formula that counts the word Closed by date for the last 7 days in a filtered list.
=COUNTIF(M:M,”>”&TODAY()-7) works ok for unfiltered count Column M contains Closure dates (blank if open) and Column L is Status Open or Closed
@ Terry
Please ask the question at the Chandoo.org Forums
https://chandoo.org/forum/
Please attach a sample file to ensure a quicker more accurate answer
I used this formula and worked like a charm! But, now I’ve been requested to use it but adding not one but two criteria in the same formula. For instance the sum I was doing added negative and positive numbers. I’ve been asked to use the exact same formula but adding that only positive numbers were considered… any idea on how to do this?
How exactly do you do sum filtered cells when two criteria are need not just one?
Thank you so much brother literally I have been struggling since morning to get the sum of the filtered category, however, after reading your blog attentively i got my solution, so thanks a lot once again.