Do you want to lookup in any column and return the result? Something like this:
In this article, learn how to write necessary Excel formulas to get the result.
Data Setup for looking up in any column
You need to set up your data in below structure. One column with the data you want to get and multiple columns with potential lookup value. For example, team name in column C, member names in columns D:J, as depicted below.
Lookup formula:
Let’s say we want to lookup “Leonard”, who is in the tea “Geeky Group”. Here is the formula.
=XLOOKUP(1,BYROW(D5:J13,LAMBDA(row,COUNTIFS(row,"Leonard"))),C5:C13)
'notes:
'D5:J13 contains team member names
'C5:C13 contains team names
'this will return #N/A if none of the teams contain lookup value - ie LeonardHow does this formula work?
To understand how this lookup in any column formula is working, we need to first understand a few Excel concepts.
- BYROW: This function let’s you define logic or operations that apply consistently for each row of the data. As we want to look in each row of team members and see if any of them is “Leonard”, BYROW is perfect for this operation.
- LAMBDA: We can use Excel’s LAMBDA functions to create custom logic. As we need to check each row of the data to see if any of the members are “Leonard”, I created a LAMBDA to do that operation. LAMBDA(row, COUNTIFS(row, “Leonard”)) will return the count of “Leonard” in the input variable row
So now that you have the basic concepts ready, let’s understand the lookup in any column function. Here is the formula again.
=XLOOKUP(1,BYROW(D5:J13,LAMBDA(row,COUNTIFS(row,"Leonard"))),C5:C13)
'notes:
'D5:J13 contains team member names
'C5:C13 contains team names
'this will return #N/A if none of the teams contain lookup value - ie Leonard- BYROW(D5:J13,LAMBDA(row,COUNTIFS(row,”Leonard”))): This formula portion tells us how many times “Leonard” appeared in each row of the data. It will be 0 if the team doesn’t contain lookup value and 1(or more) if the team contains the lookup value. For our sample data, this would be {0;0;0;0;0;1;0;0;0}
- XLOOKUP(1, BYROW(…), C5:C13): Now that we know which team has the lookup value (Leonard), we just lookup for 1 (count) in the BYROW output and return the corresponding team name from the column C.
What if there are multiple matching values?
By default XLOOKUP returns the first matching value whenever we have multiple matches. If you want to see all team names for a given person name (for example Amy is in two teams – “Geeky Group” and “99 Not Out”.
In this case, we can use FILTER() function instead of XLOOKUP.
Using FILTER function to return all matching values
Here is the formula to see all team names for a given person.
=FILTER(C5:C13,BYROW(D5:J13="Amy",OR))
'notes:
'D5:J13 contains team member names
'C5:C13 contains team names
'Here we are using an advanced variation of BYROW that applies OR operation on every row of comparison directly. The end result would be a bunch of TRUE or FALSE values, TRUE for teams that contain "Amy" and FALSE for rest of the rows.This formula uses an advanced variation of the BYROW by doing a comparison directly and applying OR operation on each row of comparison. The result of BYROW would be an array of TRUE or FALSE values. TRUE for rows which contain Amy and FALSE for the rest.
When FILTER(C5:C13 …) sees this array of TRUE/FALSE values, it would return the matching items from C5:C13 for all TRUE values.
In this case, the output is shown below.
Further reading:
If you want to understand how the inner parts of this formula are working, refer to below articles / videos.
- How to use XLOOKUP function in Excel
- BYROW explained with examples
- What is LAMBDA function in Excel
- How to use FILTER function in Excel
- FILTER function in Excel – Video
Limitations of both formulas
Both of the above approaches (XLOOKUP and FILTER) only work with Excel 365 as BYROW is only available in that version of Excel. If you are using an older version of Excel (such as 2024, 2019 or 2016) you can’t use these approaches.
Alternative formula for older version of Excel
There is no alternative for the FILTER() approach as older versions of Excel are not capable of spilling values. But there is an alternative to XLOOKUP() approach of returning the first matching value by looking up any column.
Here is the formula:
=INDEX($C$5:$C$13,MATCH(1, MMULT((D5:J13="Leonard")*1,TRANSPOSE(COLUMN(D5:J13)^0)),0))
'notes:
'D5:J13 contains team member names
'C5:C13 contains team namesUsing MMULT to mimic BYROW operation
Most of the above formula is easy to understand, but the bit with MMULT is the confusing part. So let me explain. Here is the MMULT portion: MMULT((D5:J13=”Leonard”)*1,TRANSPOSE(COLUMN(D5:J13)^0))
- (D5:J13=”Leonard”) checks every cell of the team member data and returns a bunch of TRUE or FALSE values. TRUE when the cell value is “Leonard” and FALSE otherwise. This is how that output looks like:
- (D5:J13=”Leonard”)*1 turns this boolean array into a bunch of 0s & 1s (0 = false and 1 = true). So the output at this point would be:
- COLUMN(D5:J13) would return the the column numbers for columns D to J. This would be an array of {4,5,6,7,8,9,10}
- TRANSPOSE(COLUMN(D5:J13) turns these numbers into a row-wise array. So the net result at this point is {4;5;6;7;8;9;10}
- TRANSPOSE(COLUMN(D5:J13)^0 takes all these numbers and makes them 1s as any number raised to the power of 0 would be. We just need a row-wise array of 1s same size as the number of columns in the team member array. So this is a long-winded way of getting there as older versions of Excel don’t have SEQUENCE formula. At this stage, our second part of MMULT operation has this array: {1;1;1;1;1;1;1}
- Now, MMULT just multiplies these two matrices. Here they are again:
- When the matrix multiplication is done, we end up with a vertical (row-wise) array of 0s and 1s. 0 when the row doesn’t contain the lookup value (Leonard) and 1 otherwise. The result of this multiplication is:
Let’s put everything together
So now that we know how the MMULT magic is working, let’s put all the pieces together.
=INDEX($C$5:$C$13,MATCH(1, MMULT((D5:J13="Leonard")*1,TRANSPOSE(COLUMN(D5:J13)^0)),0))
'notes:
'D5:J13 contains team member names
'C5:C13 contains team namesINDEX($C$5:$C$13,MATCH(1, MMULT(…), 0)) simply looks for a 1 in the MMULT result and returns the corresponding value from range C5:C13.
Further reading on older Excel formulas:
Please refer to below pages for further learning on these formula techniques.
- INDEX + MATCH formula in Excel – explanation
- SUMPRODUCT explained
- How to use boolean operations with arrays in Excel
- MMULT examples
Example Workbook: Lookup in any column
If you need a practice file to understand these formulas better, download it here.
In conclusion
While Excel’s lookup functions (XLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, FILTER, INDEX+MATCH) are great, they all suffer from one nagging limitation. They can only lookup in one place at a time (ie one column or row). But most of the time, our business data is not so tidy. We get data that can span multiple columns. In such cases, using the BYROW() to process one row at a time and then applying lookup or filter logic is a great alternative.
Moreover, if your data is structured vertically (ie team members are listed in rows instead of columns), we can use the same approach with BYCOL function. It applies the logic by column.
The BY functions (BYROW and BYCOL) are great addition to Excel and should be part of every analyst’s toolkit. Using them solves many tricky data problems easily.
49 Responses to “Introduction to Slicers – What are they, how to use them, tips, advanced techniques & interactive reports using Excel Slicers”
Great article!
If you want to learn a bit more about using slicers in VBA, head over here:
http://jkp-ads.com/articles/slicers03.asp
Hi
I downloaded cube-formula-slicer-selection.xlsx.
Why is 'Report Connections' grayed out?
Great article!! Thank you very much... This post is one of the most helpful for my job!
Great Introduction. Thanks very much.
Wow! trying to use this on the reports that I have now. I really liked that Quantity and Amount Bar graph used on the pivot-multi tab, but for the life of me, I can't seem to replicate it from scratch. Help please?
[…] http://chandoo.org/wp/2015/06/24/introduction-to-slicers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email… […]
This is awesome! I will favorite this page in my blog, http://www.exceltoxl.com
Since I've known slicers about 2-3 yrs ago, I've pretty much used them in every damn report I do. Everyone that sees it for the first time is like "This is the best thing ever. Did you do that using excel or something else?" 😀 My bosses are so used it that when they see a report from someone else that doesn't have slicers they send it to me to redo it :).
Couple of tips:-
Tip 1:
If for lack of space or say you want ability to search within a filter due to numerous values being present but still want it to connect to multiple pivot tables or charts then
1. Setup a pivot table with just the report filter
2. Create a slicer with the same field and tie that to all the pivot tables/charts that you want.
3. Just place it some out of sight.
Now you have a dropdown with all your values with search option plsu it is also connected to all your charts and pivot tables.
TIP 2:
In Excel 2013, slicers can be used with just plain tables as well. Not limited to pivot tables.
Congrats!
Nice content : )
Very comprehensive. Explained in an extremely simple way. I have been using Slicers for a while, but still learnt new things from this post. Thanks for sharing. Best wishes.
Awesome Explanation !!
I have joined this blog recently. Brilliant tools are available that I started using in my day to day work. Brilliant site. Thanks heaps.
[…] Read the full article here: Introduction to Slicers – What are they, how to use them, tips, advanced techniques & interact… […]
Oh wow. I've only just started using Excel 2010 and had no idea this even existed. It makes dynamic charts so much easier!
You are my Hero! I am working with PowerPivot due to the huge amount of data I have and could not use my usual tricks to get the scatter chart title to change. For some reason the CUBE function wouldn't work (who knows why, I don't have time to dig into it now) but your "dummy" solution did.
thankyouthankyouthankyou!
Clare
On a normal PivotTable filter, you can choose whether to allow multiple items to be selected or not. Is that possible with slicers (in Excel 2010)? I've had a look through the options and not found a way to do it yet!
Hi Stevie... this is not possible with slicers.
Just hold down control when you're choosing them...can then either click another (without control) and it will show only the new one, or click the filter with the red 'x' to revert back to all options.
Not a limitation that can be placed on the slicer but still a potential workaround depending on your needs.
Very comprehensive note on slicer. I haven't yet used ms excel 2010, but learnt Slicer tool very well
How should I apply Slicer in excel 2010 version, not able find options
as directed, could you please tell me that step by step
@Arif
In Excel 2010 slicers could only be applied to Pivot tables/Charts not Regular tables
@Arif
In Excel 2010 slicers could only be applied to Pivot tables/Charts not Regular tables
I have a longitudinal line graph with the count of exams scored at each level(1-4). I need a longitudinal line graph that shows the percentage for each level. I made my pivot with the count in the field settings with a calculation of % of row total. This works great until you add a slicer fo that you can look at one level at a time. When I do this, it shows as 100% because it seems to lose the rest of the row calculations. How can I set it up to show the percent. I do not have the option of adding it to my data table. I am using straight Pivot, not PowerPivot.
@Mary
I'd suggest asking the question in the Chandoo.org Forums http://forum.chandoo.org/
Attach a sample file with an example of what you are after, even hand drawn
Hi, thanks for these tips. Is it possible to link a slicer to *different data sets*? All my data sets have a "year_opened" and "month_opened" fields, and I'd like do a single filter and update everything at once. Is that possible?
Hi,
Can someone tell me how to format a date field in a slicer to tell July 2016 instead of 07/31/2016?
Thanks in advance.
Great post - easily explainable for non excel whiz.
Thanks for the slicers post. I'm knew to this feature so don't be to harsh on me 🙂
In the example bar chart graph: "Quantity breakup by Customer Profession and & Product category" you get a different picture depending on which area is chosen "East, Middle, North, South, West". That part I get. But the graph itself doesn't specify which region you are in.
Is it possible to put the filtered criteria into the Chart title. For example if I chose West, the title would read "Quantity breakup by Customer Profession and & Product category - West".
Is that possible? Just curious. Thanks
It is possible...I have this on a number of my reports.
1) create a pivot table with just the column your slicer is set on
2) assign the slicer to that pivot table
3) create a string in cell B3 (or wherever):
="Quantity breakup by Customer Profession & Product Category- "&A3
(assuming that A3 is the cell that the chosen region appears in)
4) click (once) on the graph title, then in the formula bar type =B3
As you change the slicers, B3 will update as will the chart title.
Couple of tips:
1) if you need to have a new line for the title, use CHAR(10) e.g.
="Quantity breakup by Customer Profession & Product Category"&CHAR(10)&A3
(this will have the region on a new line)
2) if multiple regions will be chosen, I've added in an IF statement
=IF(COUNTA(A3:A10)>1,"Multiple Regions",A3)
(I'm sure there are ways to concatenate the strings but for mine it could get up to 20 and that just gets ridiculous for the graph heading)
Just Wow
I am trying to create a duplicate dashboard using data in one workbook and creating a new workbook to place in a shared file for my coworkers. I have created a separate worksheet in the original workbook for the new pivot charts and slicers I want to use in the new workbook/dashboard. I don't want all of the source data in the new workbook, as it is very large. I am having trouble making new slicers work. They work in the original workbook, but when I copy them to the new workbook they don't work. Am I going about this the right way or is there an easier way?
Very good post! Helped a lot. Keep up the good work!
how can you prevent multiple selection in a slicer box? In short, in any slicer box, only one entry is allowed and not multiple entries.
Fairly new to forum's, hoping I'm not breaking a rule here, but I found this forum which seems to provide a solution:
https://wessexbi.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/just-one-slice-please/
I have 2 files. (1. .xlsx 2. .xlsm)
1 file contains all the pivot tables and charts. its also macro enabled.
2nd file contains the source data which is a .xlsx file.
but I am unable to run slicer on my 1st file.
can anybody help me out?
chandoo.org: one of my favourite Excel sites for years.
Slicers tutorial: excellent as usual.
Animated gifs: sorry, but REALLY distracting!! Especially with two on the same screen. Is there any way they can be activated only when we click on them, or something?
Hi Team,
I have inserted a slicer to a pivot table with 4 fields...I need to add another field for the same slicer...help me with this..
First of all I would like to say terrific blog!
I had a quick questio in whiich I'd like to ask if you don't
mind. I was intereested to know how you center yourself and clear your head
before writing. I've had a hard time clearing my mind in getting my ideas out there.
I do enjoy writing however it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are generally lost simply just tryying to figure out how
to begin. Any recommendations oor tips? Many thanks!
Hi All
Im trying to connect a slicer to 2 pivot tables with different sources
Both data tables have been sorted and have duplicates
ie
Table 1
Name Week FTe
A 1 7.2
A 2 7.3
B 1 7.3
B 2 7.3
Table 2
Name Month Fte
A Jan 2.6
A Feb 3.2
A Mar 4.4
B Jan 2.2
B Feb 6.4
B Mar 2.2
etc
I have created 2 pivot tables and have sorted it out the way i want with charts etc
Now all i want is to connect the Name Slicer to be connected to both of those pivot tables but problem is they have duplicates and are from different tables/sources
how can i connect/add this to a data model and connect to my name slicer?
Im sure it maybe something simple but minds not with it
So in short 1 to connect 1 slicer to 2 different pivots from different sources but not all pivots (There are dups in both) - as shown in the example
Thank You
Hi H
This is how you can do it. Create a third table with all slicer options (in this case it would be Name column) with one row per unique value. Now add this table to your source list. Then link all two tables via this third table thru Data ribbon > Manage relationships feature. Finally add a slicer on this third table column and link the slicer to both pivot charts.
Please note that you need to construct the tables and charts after data model is created.
See this page for more explanation on how to use relationships - https://chandoo.org/wp/introduction-to-excel-2013-data-model-relationships/
Hi,
Using Cube Value with Slicers is great. I am new to cube value, but it is so powerful. I am stuck on an issue where I want to filter on a slicer for all values except 1 and the slicer has thousands of values. I get #N/A in the results, when trying to do this. Any ideas on how to do an exception calc or how to get around this with the multi select slicer functionality?
Thanks in advance.
Cyleste
@Cyleste... thanks for your comments and welcome to Chandoo.org. You can use DAX to calculate such things as Excel pivot tables alone cannot function like the way you want. You can use DAX formula EXCEPT() to achieve this. For example,
=CALCULATE(SUM(data[sales]), EXCEPT(ALL(data[filter_column]), VALUES(data[filter_column]))) can tell you the sum of [sales] column in the data table by ignoring slicer selected values.
Hope that helps.
Hi Chandoo,
Thank you for your quick reply. I am not familiar with DAX but it sounds like I won't be able to apply the calculation you provided after converting the power pivot to excel formulas via OLAP.
Cyleste
Thanks Chandoo, I like yours tricks & always I use slicers. Regards from México.
Hi Chandoo,
I have a lot of text in the slices (Pivot table). The text is not completely visible. What should I do?
Please Help
Thanks
Hi Girish,
Slicers are useful only for items with short text, for ex: categories, product names etc. For longer values, you are better off using form controls for interaction - Here is an overview of form controls Form Controls – Adding Interactivity to Your Worksheets
Thanks so much for this, it's brilliant! I think it's almost there - I've actually followed the steps on the example linked in my post. I just can't get it to filter properly; it just returns 0 when I add a date into Cell O2. Should I be doing it differently?
slicers dont work with non-admin roles in OLAP Pivot Tables