Excel issue with Function VLOOKUP

Question

I know this might not be the best place to ask a purely excel question, but. I have a table with the following headers: Number, Date, Name. In another file I need to link the number with the name. It is not always in the same order, hence the VLOOKUP formula. Here is the data below.

1   15-Nov  Allen   15-Nov  
10  15-Nov  Allen   15-Nov  
19  15-Nov  Allen   15-Nov  
6   5-Mar   Avalon  5-Mar  
15  5-Mar   Avalon  5-Mar  
24  5-Mar   Avalon  5-Mar  
9   15-Nov  Burg    15-Nov  
18  15-Nov  Burg    15-Nov  
27  15-Nov  Burg    15-Nov  
8   1-Sep   Fischer 1-Sep  
17  1-Sep   Fischer 1-Sep  
26  1-Sep   Fischer 1-Sep  
3   14-Oct  Kiser   14-Oct  
12  14-Oct  Kiser   14-Oct  
21  14-Oct  Kiser   14-Oct  
2   15-Oct  Remmert 15-Oct  
11  15-Oct  Remmert 15-Oct  
20  15-Oct  Remmert 15-Oct  
4   1-Sep   Roos    1-Sep  
13  1-Sep   Roos    1-Sep  
22  1-Sep   Roos    1-Sep  
7   6-Feb   Tomo    6-Feb  
16  6-Feb   Tomo    6-Feb  
25  6-Feb   Tomo    6-Feb  
5   1-Jan   Wash    1-Jan  
14  1-Jan   Wash    1-Jan  
23  1-Jan   Wash    1-Jan  

So Lets assume it is titled as Column A, B, C, D. So in the new file in order to grab the name from numbers I used the formula:

=VLOOKUP(A1,[Workbook1]Sheet1!$A$1:$D$27,3,FALSE)

Workbook1 and Sheet1 is where the data is. Next I need to grab the date from the file by linking it to the name. I know I can link it to the number but it is a thing for work and the way they are arranged are with Different dates from oldest to newest, not the same like this one. The Date function in excel is extremely stupid in my opinion. So I used the formula

=VLOOKUP(B1,[Workbook1]Sheet1!$A$1:$D$27,1,FALSE)

and iterations of it by replacing the 1 with 4. It keeps returning N/A. Even when I change the formatting of the Date to General it still returns nothing. I dont get what I am doing wrong here.

Answer 1

VLOOKUP syntax:

VLOOKUP(lookup_value , table_array, col_index_num, (optional) [range_lookup])

The VLOOKUP function will always look up the lookup_value in the first column of the table_array. It then attempts to return the value in the col_index_num of the corresponding row in the table_array. The range_lookup tells VLOOKUP whether to look for an exact or an approximate match. In your case, you will be looking for an exact match.

In no way can VLOOKUP return a value in the table_array that is to the left of the column looking to match the lookup_value. The lookup_value is always looked for in the first column and VLOOKUP returns a value in a column to the right.

Your formula to look up the name based upon the ID number in column A works well for this.

=VLOOKUP(A1, [Workbook1]Sheet1!$A$1:$D$27, 3, FALSE)

With 8 in A1, the above formula returns Fischer in B1.

      

When you are looking to return the dates, VLOOKUP will work for the one to the right of the name in Sheet1's column D but it cannot the return the date from Sheet1's column B basing the lookup_value on the name. You will need an INDEX/MATCH function pair for that. In addition, retrieving the second and third date sets that match the name is easier with INDEX/MATCH than VLOOKUP.

INDEX and MATCH syntax:

INDEX(array, row_num, column_num)

MATCH(lookup_value, lookup_array, (optional) [match_type])

If you are looking to return the date from Sheet1's column B using the name just retrieved from Sheet1's column C, you will have to use an INDEX/MATCH pair. Since we are using this for one date, it is eaay to use it for the other although strictly speaking, VLOOKUP could be used for this.

Use these two formulas in C1 and D1.

=INDEX([Workbook1]Sheet1!B:B, MATCH(B1, [Workbook1]Sheet1!C:C, 0))
=INDEX([Workbook1]Sheet1!D:D, MATCH(B1, [Workbook1]Sheet1!C:C, 0))

Format the cells for a custom number format of d-mmm. Your results should be similar to the following.

      

If you wanted to return the second and third dates from Sheet1 that match the name in column B, change the target worksheet's C1 and D1 to to these formulas that use the SMALL function togewther with the ROW function and COUNTIF function to produce the additional dates.

Make a minor tweak to the formula in B1 so it can be filled down then supply the next two formulas for C1 and D1.

=VLOOKUP(A$1, [Workbook1]Sheet1!$A$1:$D$27, 3, FALSE)
=IFERROR(INDEX([Workbook1]Sheet1!B$1:B$999, SMALL(INDEX(ROW($1:$999)+([Workbook1]Sheet1!C$1:C$999<>B$1)*1E+99, , ), COUNTIF(B$1:B1, B1))), "")
=IFERROR(INDEX([Workbook1]Sheet1!B$1:B$999, SMALL(INDEX(ROW($1:$999)+([Workbook1]Sheet1!C$1:C$999<>B$1)*1E+99, , ), COUNTIF(B$1:B1, B1))), "")

Fill B1:D1 down down to catch all of the possible dates from Sheet1 that match the name returned from your original ID lookup. Your results should look like,

      

You may notice that I sequenced the identical dates on Sheet1 in order to demonstrate the method. The IFERROR function is used to display an empty string (e.g. "") instead of an error message when you run out of values (as in C4 and D4 in the above sample image).

In summary, use the VLOOKUP function to return values to the right of the value sought; use an INDEX/MATCH function pair to retrieve values from either side of the matching column.

Answer 2

You need format the date with the following format :

This is the overall that I had done to solve the problem.

Answer 3

I assume that B1 holds the name of the person. In that case, you need to adjust the range for the lookup table, so that it starts in the column with the name, i.e.

=VLOOKUP(B1,[Workbook1]Sheet1!$C$1:$D$27,2,FALSE)

EDITTED : Change the column to 2 to get the date