Let’s say you have some employee data in employee name, manager name format. But the data is all in one column, with odd rows containing employee names & even rows containing manager names. Something like this.
And you want to find out who is the boss for a given employee. Say, “Andrea Nichols”.
Your regular MATCH() formula for Andrea over the data range returns wrong answer as it will find first occurrence of Andrea (which in this case happens to be on even row, hence a manager record).
So how would you write the lookup formula?
Odd Lookup formula:
Let’s assume your data starts at B4 and goes for 200 cells (ie 100 employee and 100 manager names), and the employee name you want to lookup is in cell F4.
We can find the position of the employee using below MATCH formula. (Array formula, so press Ctrl+Shift+Enter after typing it)
=MATCH(F4,T(OFFSET($B$4,ROW($A$1:$A$100)*2-2,,1,1)),0)
This will give us the position of employee (ie 3 for Andrea Nichols in the sample data image above).
Once we have the position, we can use below INDEX formula to get the manager’s name.
=INDEX($B$4:$B$203,position*2)
How do these formulas work?
The INDEX formula is fairly obvious. So let’s dig deep in to the MATCH formula.
- First we extract all the odd cells in the range B4:B203 using
OFFSET($B$4,ROW($A$1:$A$100)*2-2,,1,1))part. TheROW(A1:A100)portion generates an array of numbers from 1 to 100 which we then convert to even numbers using simple arithmetic. - We then use
T()formula to convert the odd cell values in to an array of text values. - Finally MATCH() looks for the employee name in F4 against this list to find the matching position.
Please refer to OFFSET tutorial & INDEX formula tutorial to understand the syntax and array usages.
How to make these formulas generic:
In our formulas above, we use a fixed range A1:A100 to generate the even numbers. If you have different sized list, you can use below generic version of the ROW formula.
Assuming your list is named list:
Replace the ROW() formula above with below version:
ROW($A$1:OFFSET($A$1,COUNTA(list)/2,,))
Download example workbook
Click here to download example workbook for odd lookup problem. Play with the formulas in cells F5 & F6 to learn more.
How would you lookup odd values…
Bad data is everywhere. Recently, I have come across a data set that is precisely like this. I ended up using the above pattern to find the answer quickly.
What about you? How would you lookup odd values? Please share your approach in the comments section.
Even more odd data problems? We got you covered
Don’t let dirty data drag you down. Check out below resources to learn more.
- Introduction to Excel VLOOKUP formula
- Multi-condition lookups
- VLOOKUP second or third (or nth) match
- Lookup the answer in matrix
- Lookup discounted pricing tier
- Range lookup – find out which range contains the answer
13 Responses to “Convert fractional Excel time to hours & minutes [Quick tip]”
Hi Purna..
Again a great tip.. Its a great way to convert Fractional Time..
By the way.. Excel has two great and rarely used formula..
=DOLLARFR(7.8,60) and =DOLLARDE(7.48,60)
basically US Account person uses those to convert some currency denomination.. and we can use it to convert Year(i.e 3.11 Year = 3 year 11 month) and Week(6.5 week = 6 week 5 days), in the same manner...
This doesn't work for me. When applying the custom format of [h]:mm to 7.8 I get 187:12
Any ideas why?
@Jason
7.8 in Excel talk means 7.8 days
=7.8*24
=187.2 Hrs
=187 Hrs 12 Mins
If you follow Chandoo's instructions you will see that he divides the 7.8 by 24 to get it to a fraction of a day
Simple, assuming the fractional time is in cell A1,
Use below steps to convert it to hours & minutes:
1. In the target cell, write =A1/24
2. Select the target cell and press CTRL+1 to format it (you can also right click and select format cells)
3. Select Custom from “Number” tab and enter the code [h]:mm
4. Done!
Hi, sorry to point this out but Column C Header is misspelt 'Hours Palyed'
good one
So how do I go the other way and get hours and minutes to fractional time?
If you have 7.5 in cell A1,
- Use int(A1) to get the hours.
- Use mod(A1,1)*60 to get minutes.
If you have 7:30 (formatted as time) in A1
- Use hours(a1) to get hours
- Use minutes(a1) to get minutes.
I had the same issue. You can solve it by changing the format as described above:
Right click cell > Format Cells > (In Number tab) > Custom > Then enter the code [h]:mm
([hh]:mm and [hhh]:mm are nice too if you want to show leading zeros)
Thanks guys, these are the tips I'm looking for.
...dividing the number of minutes elapsed by the percent change is my task - "int" is the key this time
It doesnt work for greater than 24 hours
It returns 1:30 for 25.5 hours. It should have returned 25:30
Ideally I would right function as
=QUOTIENT(A1,1)&":"&MOD(A1,1)*60
Sorry, replied to wrong comment....
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I had the same issue. You can solve it by changing the format as described above:
Right click cell > Format Cells > (In Number tab) > Custom > Then enter the code [h]:mm
([hh]:mm and [hhh]:mm are nice too if you want to show leading zeros)
Clever use of MOD here to extract the decimal part of a number. Divide a number containing a decimal by 1 and return the remainder. Humm. Very clever.
Thanks very much, extremely useful !