All articles with 'vlookup' Tag

Here is a question someone asked me in a class recently.

“I know how to use VLOOKUP to find a value based on search term. But I have a slight variation to it. I need to extract value below the cell VLOOKUP finds.”

This is simpler than it sounds.

We can use INDEX + MATCH formulas to do this.

Last week, we had a lovely poll on what are your favorite features of Excel? More than 120 people responded to it with various answers. So I did what any data analyst worth his salt would do,

I analyzed the data and here are the top 10 features in Excel according to you.

Read on to learn more.

One of the popular uses of Excel is to maintain a list of events, appointments or other calendar related stuff. While Excel shines easily when you want to log this data, it has no quick way to visualize this information. But we can use little creativity, conditional formatting, few formulas & 3 lines of VBA code to create a slick, interactive calendar in Excel. Today, lets understand how to do this.

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.

So you think you know VLOOKUP formula? Well, test your knowledge.

Click here to take our first ever quiz – on Look up formulas.

Few weeks ago, someone asked me “What are the top 10 formulas?” That got me thinking.

While each of us have our own list of favorite, most frequently used formulas, there is no standard list of top 10 formulas for everyone. So, today let me attempt that.

If you want to become a data or business analyst then you must develop good understanding of Excel formulas & become fluent in them.

A good analyst should be familiar with below 10 formulas to begin with.

VLookup is often seen as the poor cousin in the lookup function family and often gets overlooked when it comes to looking up values due to a common misconception that Vlookup doesn’t or can’t lookup values to the left of the reference value.
Today at Formula Forensics we will explode this myth and see how to make VLookup, lookup to the Left and we’ll explain how it works.

We know that using VLOOKUP, we can find a value corresponding to a given item. For example Sales of x. But what if you have multiple sales for each item and you want the last value?

Today lets understand how to find the last date of an activity, given data like above.

Like everything else in Excel, there are multiple ways to finding last date. If cats can use computers, they would hate Excel. You see, Excel is overflowing with unlimited ways to skin a cat.

This week many Excel bloggers are celebrating VLOOKUP week. So I wanted to chip in and give you a comprehensive guide to VLOOKUP & Other lookup formulas. Read on …,

What is VLOOKUP Formula & how to use it?

I often tell my excel school students that learning VLOOKUP formulas will change your basic approach towards data. You will suddenly feel that you have discovered a superman cape in your attic. It is that awesome.

;
Today we look at a very neat way of doing a complex Nested If or Vlookup style problem with a simple but beautiful Sumproduct based formula.

One of the most dreaded courses during my under-graduation is Probability, Statistics & Queuing Theory. We called it PSQT. I struggled to understand the significance and concept of this course as I could barely concentrate in the class. We had a professor, who is probably a genius, but the moment he started the class, I would magically fall in to one of my after-noon naps. When I woke up, we are either in the middle of an elaborate t-test or going thru intricacies of a Markovian queue.

This was all 11 years ago. Later in life, I have embraced the world of probability & statistics. I still fear queues. May be I will get there one day. 😉

A good understanding of statistics & probability theory is necessary if you want to model complex real-life problems using Excel or similar tools. Naturally, Excel has several functions, features & supported add-ins to help you in this area.

Today, I want to share some of this with you. This article is broken down in to 3 parts.

1. Learning Statistics & Probability using Excel
2. Downloadable Excel Workbooks to understand
3. Full blown models & simulations in Excel

Today I want to share an Employee Shift Calendar Template with you. You can use this template to keep track of shift timings on various days. See a demo of the template: How does this template work? This template uses a 3 main ideas, Excel formulas to create the calendar & checking for a day’s […]

Many of us start using Excel to keep track of something. And along way, we realize that Excel has a powerful feature called formulas, using which we can automate a lot of things. BOOM! Before we realize, we are in the thick of VLOOKUPs and SUMIFs.

But, along way, we also pick up a few bad habits or believe a few myths. Today, lets bust 10 Excel formula myths that we hear often.

Read this post to learn what these myths and why you should not trust them.

Don’t know which way to go ?
Can’t make up your mind between alternatives?
Using collected or known data is the best when developing Excel models, but from time to time this may not be available when you are developing your model. This post will look at some options for setting up Dummy Data using Excels Random number functions.

We have talked a lot about VLOOKUP and other lookup formulas recently during VLOOKUP Week.

In this post I am giving away a free VLOOKUP formula cheat-sheet for our readers. This cheat-sheet is prepared by Cheater John specifically for our readers. I hope you enjoy the one page help on VLOOKUP.