Forum Discussion
Angela McGhin
Feb 12, 2019Brass Contributor
vlookup using concatenate function and helper column
Hi - I've set up a table to record project costs. To save time, there are some standard unit costs that I want to pull through from another tab in the same worksheet. For example Consultant '...
- Feb 12, 2019
Hi Angela,
That's because you use VLOOKUP in the approximate match mode.
So please fix it as follows:
=VLOOKUP((CONCATENATE(B6,C6)),'drop downs'!$A$1:$B$23,2,0)
By setting the last argument to 0 or FALSE, you're now in the Exact match mode.
Hope that helps
Haytham Amairah
Feb 12, 2019Silver Contributor
Hi Angela,
That's because you use VLOOKUP in the approximate match mode.
So please fix it as follows:
=VLOOKUP((CONCATENATE(B6,C6)),'drop downs'!$A$1:$B$23,2,0)
By setting the last argument to 0 or FALSE, you're now in the Exact match mode.
Hope that helps
- Angela McGhinFeb 12, 2019Brass Contributor
That's perfect - thanks so much for the quick and helpful reply!
- Haytham AmairahFeb 12, 2019Silver Contributor
You're welcome!
Anyway, there is a powerful alternative to VLOOKUP called (INDEX & MATCH).
By using this alternative, you don't have to use helper columns.
=INDEX('drop downs'!$A$2:$A$53,INDEX(MATCH(B6&C6,'drop downs'!$B$2:$B$53&'drop downs'!$C$2:$C$53,0),))
Regards,
Haytham
- Angela McGhinFeb 13, 2019Brass Contributor
That's great - thank you, I've never seen that one before :-)