Last week, we had our very first quiz – “How well do you know your LOOKUPs?“. I hope you have enjoyed it.
Today lets understand the answers & explanations for this quiz.
First a summary of results (and controversies):
More than 3,200 people attempted the quiz. Roughly 45% of you got correct answers. That said there were 4 questions where 90% of you made mistakes. This is mainly because these questions & answer choices were ambiguous. As this is the first time I ran a quiz on Chandoo.org, it was a learning experience for me too. I promise to keep the questions & answer choices clearer next time 🙂
*Questions that are ambiguous are marked with a * below.
Here are the answers & explanations this quiz.
If your lookup table is in ascending order, then you can omit 4th parameter and VLOOKUP will find either exact or approximate match.
We use 4th parameter as FALSE when our list may not be in any particular sort order and we are looking for exact matches.
So the answer is When my lookup list is not in any particular sort order
Related: Introduction to VLOOKUP – Syntax, explanation & examples
We can check whether a value is present in a list or not using any of below formulas.
COUNTIF / COUNTIFS
- COUNTIF(range, value you are looking) will be >0 if value is available.
- Introduction to COUNTIF formula
VLOOKUP
- VLOOKUP(value you are looking, range, 1,false) will not be an error if value is available
SUMPRODUCT
- SUMPRODUCT(–(range=value you are looking)) will be >0
- Introduction to SUMPRODUCT formula
MATCH
- MATCH(value you are looking, range,0) will not be an error
- Introduction to MATCH formula
VLOOKUP will always find the first match (assuming you specified FALSE in last parameter).
Related: Finding 2nd, 3rd matches using VLOOKUP.
We all want a world without traffic, crying babies & error messages. Alas, there are no Excel formulas for first 2, but we can suppress error messages for sure, by using any of below formulas:
- IFERROR
- ISERROR
- ISNA
- IFNA (new in Excel 2013)
Invoice ID, Customer ID, Amount, Due DateNow, you want to lookup the invoice ID for a given Customer ID. Which of below formulas you would use? Assume that your list is not in any particular order and there are no duplicate customer IDs.Although VLOOKUP is very powerful, it has one limitation. It can only search in left most column and get values from columns to right. To lookup on a column in middle and get values from either left or right, we can use below alternatives.
INDEX + MATCH formulas
- =INDEX(invoiceIDs, MATCH(thisID, customerIDs, 0))
- More on this technique
OFFSET + MATCH formulas
- =OFFSET(invoiceIDs, MATCH(thisID, customerIDs, 0),0,1,1)
- More on this technique, OFFSET formula explained
VLOOKUP + CHOOSE formulas
- =VLOOKUP(thisID,CHOOSE({2,1},invoiceIDs, customerIDs), 2, FALSE)
- More on this technique
To find the last invoice and its amount, we need to few ingredients:
- Know how many invoices are there for given invoice number
- A helper column with invoice counts up to that point
For above data, you can insert a column between A&B and use it as helper column. Write this formula in it (and fill down)
=A1&”-“&COUNTIF($A$1:A1,A1)
This will tell us how many times each invoice number is repeated up to that point.
Now, use the VLOOKUP formula to find last invoice’s amount like this:
=VLOOKUP(this_invoice&”-“&COUNTIF(A1:A100, this_invoice), B1:C100, 2, false)
Related: Finding 2nd, 3rd … matches using VLOOKUP.
Nah, it will return #N/A error.
Q8. You have a list of employee names & their salary details.
Employee name, Salary, Special Allowance, Travel Allowance, Bonus
in 5 columns – A1:E100.
Your friend gave you below VLOOKUP formula
=SUMPRODUCT(VLOOKUP("Joyce", A1:E100, {2,3,4,5}, FALSE))
What would be the output of this
Do you know that you can use arrays for 3rd parameter in VLOOKUP? When you do it, you will get values from all column numbers mentioned in the array. So we get Joyce’s salary, special allowance, travel allowance and bonus amounts.
When wrapped in SUMPRODUCT, this will just be the sum of all these numbers.
Related: Extracting values from multiple columns using VLOOKUP.
To get the value from 2nd column, we write =VLOOKUP(value to lookup, A1:Z1000, 2, false)
To get 3rd column value, we need to replace 2 with 3.
What if we can write 1 formula and drag it side-ways so that 2 becomes 3,4…24,25?
Enter the COLUMNS() formula. It can be used to generate running numbers. So, our formula becomes,
=VLOOKUP(value to lookup, $A$1:$Z$1000, COLUMNS($A$1:A$1)+1, false)
now, you can just drag the VLOOKUP formula sideways and it will get you all the 25 values 🙂
Apart from COLUMNS(), you can also use ROWS(), COLUMN(), ROW() or simply a set of 25 numbers typed in a range and using cell references in place of 2,3,…24,25.
You can use any of below formulas to do this:
SUMIFS
=SUMIFS(amounts, customerIDs, this customer, invoiceIDs, this invocie)
SUMPRODUCT
=SUMPRODUCT(amounts, (customerIDs=this customer), (invoiceIDs=this invoice))
INDEX & MATCH
(Array formula)
{=INDEX(amounts, MATCH(this customer & this invoice, (customerIDs)&(invoiceIDs), 0)) }
Related: Various techniques for multi-condition lookups.
Want to master Lookup formulas?
Worry not. I am always looking out for you 🙂 Check out below pages for awesome resources, explanations & examples on Excel lookup formulas.
- Introduction to VLOOKUP formula – what is it & how to use it?
- Comprehensive guide to VLOOKUP & other lookup formulas
- VLOOKUP cheat sheet – download today
Searching for more? Consider joining our Excel School program
If you are searching for more on Excel, Advanced Excel, Dashboards so that you can become awesome at your work, please consider joining my Excel School program. This online course helps you use Excel like a pro & do awesome things at your work. The course has more than 24 hours of video training, 50 downloadable workbooks & interactive online classroom, all designed to help you become better.
22 Responses to “Formula Forensic No 019. Converting uneven Text Strings to Time”
Why not let the TIME function take care of the math:
=TIME(LEFT(TEXT(A1,"000000"),2),MID(TEXT(A1,"000000"),3,2),RIGHT(TEXT(A1,"000000"),2))
I was going to point out the same thing, except to note that useing the time function and doing the divide method are not interchangeable.
I have spent hours investigating a spreadsheet working with a couple of years worth of hourly data, and found that the reason things weren't working is because the rounding on the divide method is only close to the correct time values. In order to have it work for comparisons, (like sub-totaling by time value, or pivoting) you MUST use the TIME function.
Great use of the TEXT function, Hui. I will be using this concept for sure.
Why not just.
=TEXT(A1,"00\:00\:00")*1
Regards
Elegant!
Hi Elias,
I tried to use your formula. But, it doesn't seem to work for me. I am getting an error message "The formula you typed contains an error". It seems I have the problem in using \: in the format. How can I overcome this?
Thanks
Manick, it isn't the /: that causes the problem. If you copy/paste it, you're getting “'s instead of the actual quotation marks that Excel uses. Change the quotation marks by deleting from the pasted formula and retype them.
Hi Manick...
use this alternate formula :
=1*TEXT(A1,"00"":""00"":""00")
note twice double quote each side of :
@Manick,
Did you copy the formula and pasted in Excel or did you typed? Also, do you use , or ; as separator of arguments?
Regards
@Elias: I had no problem using your formula, in fact, I have used your method to convert a number such as 20120419 to an Excel date using =TEXT(A1,"0000\/00\/00")*1. Thanks for posting.
@Joe: For date convertion you can use this as well.
=TEXT(A1,"00-00-00")*1
Regards
Sweet! It appears this also works with =TEXT(A1,"0-00-00")*1. I come from the old days when you counted every byte. I also like to try an make formulas as small as possible for the fun of it 🙂
Elias's suggestion is the simplest, but here is yet another way with TIME and MOD functions...
=TIME(MOD(A2/10000,100),MOD(A2/100,100),MOD(A2,100))
Since the seconds appear to always be 0, why not simply the input to minutes and above and save yourself the trouble of typing those zeroes...
0 => 0:00
1 => 1:00
10 => 10:00
100 => 1:00:00
etc.
Then just use this formula...
=TEXT(A1,"0\:00\:")*1
@ Rick, the numbers to convert are no typed, they are imported. Then your formula will return the wrong result.
Regards.
Hmm! My formula lost some backslash-zero combinations (two of them to be exact). The formula was supposed to be this...
=TEXT(A1,"0\:00\:\zero\zero")*1
where the words "zero" should actually be the number 0. Another way to write the formula is this...
=TEXT(A1,"0\:00\:""00""")*1
Hi Master,
While writing the formulae you have considered only upto "seconds factor" . I think you should take the centi-seconds factor also to achieve best results. Please look into it and rectify the problem...?
For Example.
In horse racing timings are noted in minute, seconds and centi-seconds, like if a horse finished in 70 seconds over a scurry of 1200 metres, is noted as 1.10 min. Nowadays it is noted in centi-seconds everywhere, like 70.00 if you want to convert it to centi seconds (should multiply by 100) = 7000 centi seconds. If you put this figure into your formula as a general number (7000) it will return as 1:10:00. As per your formula, it should be taken as 1 hour 10 seconds 0 minutes. However for a racing enthusiast like me it can be taken as 1 minute 10 seconds also.
Just look what happens if we race goers use this figure as 7000 centi seconds in your formulae, it will correctly show as 1 minute 10 seconds(?) Suppose a horse finishing over a 1200m in 70.60 seconds or in racing terms written as 1.10.60 mins, where 1 minute 10 seconds, & 60 centi-seconds can be counted as 7060, if you put this figure in the formula it will return as 1 minute 11 seconds, that is correct.
My point is if you can incorporate Centi Seconds in the formulae, it would be of great help to us also.
Thanks and regards.
Rajagopal (Mumbai)
Awesome techniques !
I tried with 235960 just to see if it will fail but this is great.
Although a little longer, this too work:
=CHOOSE(LEN(A2);A2/(24*3600);A2/(24*3600);LEFT(A2;1)/(24*60) + RIGHT(A2;2)/(24*3600);LEFT(A2;2)/(24*60) + RIGHT(A2;2)/(24*3600);LEFT(A2;1)/24 + MID(A2;2;2)/(24*60) + RIGHT(A2;2)/(24*3600);LEFT(A2;2)/24 + MID(A2;3;2)/(24*60) + RIGHT(A2;2)/(24*3600))
Converting uneven Text Strings to Time I have imported some data that comes in as a number that I need to convert to h:mm.
Just come across this while googling
find interesting challenge and come up with this
=TEXT(TEXT(SUBSTITUTE(A1,RIGHT(A1,1),""),"000000"),"00\:00\:00")
I need to convert a string of numbers representing average minutes, to reflect correct time values. For example, the numbers below currently represent 5.79 minutes, 15.82 minutes, etc.
I need to convert these values to their correct corresponding value within time parameters. So 5.79 would be something close to 5 minutes and 45 seconds.
5.79
15.82
3.92
12.40
6.70
3.62
I know there has to be a way to compute this in Excel, it can do anything, I believe!
Thank you for any and all assistance~
@Renee... You can use a formula like this. Assuming A1 has the minutes.seconds,
=INT(A1) + MOD(A1, 1)*0.6
If you want to see it in 5 minutes 45 seconds format, use
=INT(A1) & " mins " & ROUND(MOD(A1, 1)*0.6,2) & " secs"