Forum Discussion

DKoh's avatar
DKoh
Copper Contributor
May 20, 2019
Solved

How to search a table/colum with 2 hits

Hello,   i have a table with Products and machines. If there is an "X" the machine could be use for this product. I want to search for the Product and give out the possible machine Name. Possible ...
excel
Formulas and Functions
  • SergeiBaklan's avatar
    SergeiBaklan
    May 20, 2019

    DKoh , with model like this

    you may use in B3

    =IFERROR(INDEX($1:$1,AGGREGATE(15,6,1/($B2:$AA2="x")*(COLUMN($B$2:$AA$2)-COLUMN($A$5)+1), (COLUMN()-COLUMN($A$5)))),"")

    , drag it to the right till empty cells appear and when to the down

DKoh's avatar
DKoh
Copper Contributor
Jun 02, 2019

SergeiBaklan 

Please explain the formula

That would be great

SergeiBaklan's avatar
SergeiBaklan
Diamond Contributor
Jun 07, 2019

DKoh 

 

Sorry, I missed that your question.

 

INDEX returns the value of the cell which is in entire (third parameter missed or zero) row (first parameter) on position defined with second parameter.

 

We find that position using AGGREGATE. It return Nth (fourth parameter) smallest (first parameter 15) from the array (third parameter) ignoring all errors (second parameter 6).  As an array we take column numbers of your data range multiplying them on 1/ logical check if the cell has the value "x". Since TRUE is equal to 1 and FALSE to 0, we have an array with ignoring errors or 1s. For the first current column  4th parameters return 1 (thus you find first smallest column number for the cell with "x"), for the next cell it'll be second smallest, etc.

 

Finally we wrap entire formula with IFERROR to return empty string if Nth smallest is not found.

 

You may stay on the cell with formula and check calculations by steps with Formula-Evaluate formula on ribbon.

 

Previous time I overcomplicated the formula a bit, it could be like

=IFERROR(INDEX($1:$1,AGGREGATE(15,6,1/($C2:$AB2="x")*COLUMN($C$2:$AB$2), (COLUMN()-COLUMN($B$5)))),"")

Resources