Forum Discussion
Looking to do a rather involved vlookup
I have a report that I have to make between two different data sources that I put into a workbook on separate pages. I want to have text show in a field where the data matches from sheet2. Sheet1 i...
The first name on sheet2 have abbreviated names or nicknames, I was hoping to do another vlookup with wildcards to sort the first names. Unfortunately there is no other common data between the two fields. I was hoping to narrow it down a bit as my current solution is returning everyone that has the same last name as a creator when only one person of most of those last names are.
You could use the first letter of the first name/nickname as the comparison...(which would have the same effect as using wildcards. Create a separate column if need be, using LEFT(CellRef,1) to extract the first letter.
Maybe concatenate the last name with the first letter or first two letters of the first name.... to create an almost unique identifier.
If A1 contains the last name, B1 the first
=A1&LEFT(B1,1) or, first first two letters of first name, =A1&LEFT(B1,2)
Use that new text string as the basis for the lookup. Do that whether or not it's nickname or first name....that should eliminate most if not all of the duplicates, in much the same way as a wildcard.