This article is part of our VLOOKUP Week. Read more.
Situation
Sometimes we don’t know what we want. If this happens when I am in a bar, I usually order a cocktail. Just a mix of everything. The same will work in Excel too.
For eg. If you have lots of data, but the value you want to look up needs to change based on whims and fancies of your users, then you can resort to a cocktail. A mix of VLOOKUP with Drop down lists (Data validation)
Data:
Solution
The recipe for VLOOKUP cocktail is relatively simple. We just take the list of sales person names and use it as a source for our input cell’s data validation drop down list. Rest is left to your imagination. Here is an example in action.
Examples:
Sample File
Download Example File – Mix VLOOKUP with Data Validation for Some Magic
Similar Tips
- Excel Basics – Add Drop Down List using Data Validations
- Generating Invoice Numbers in Excel – An example of VLOOKUP use
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11 Responses to “Who is the most consistent seller? [BYOD]”
The Date column in the sample file is Text not Dates
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Great Chandoo. Keep it up, Looking forward more from BYOD..
Thanks
With Excel 2013 the pivot table could be connected to the data model which provides a distinct count.
This will do for invoice count
=COUNTIF(F:F,H12)
Instead of
=COUNTIFS(sales[SELLER],$H12)
Excellent document. How did you make the last graphic? Witch app. Thanks for answer.
Can someone tell me what =countif(sales[date],sales[date]) is counting? The value is 19. Its found in the =SUMPRODUCT(IF(sales[SELLER]=H12,1/COUNTIFS(sales[SELLER],H12,sales[date],sales[date]),0))
Hi Chris,
=countif(sales [date],sales[date]) function is counting the unique dates in the table.
Vândalo
Excellent document!
Can you explain more about the calculation on Weighted consistency? More specific the small number is 0,00001 ?
How come the number should be smaller if there is more sellers?
Hi,
Not understood this formula: {=SUMPRODUCT(IF(sales[SELLER]=H12,1/COUNTIFS(sales[SELLER],H12,sales[date],sales[date]),0))}
Please explain.
Thanks.