lookup

[redridgie]

Below is a sample of my data.  For each customer there is a 6 digit NAICS Code and an Industry Description
NAICS Code	Industry Description
317910	Abrasive Product Manufacturing
423430	Computer and Computer Peripheral Equipment and Software Merchant Wholesalers
423510	Metal Service Centers and Other Metal Merchant Wholesalers
Below is a sample of NAICS Codes sourced from SBA.
They are either 3, 4, 5, or 6 digits long.
It is considered a match if the first 3, 4, 5, or 6 digits in my NAICS sourced data (below)
match my sample customer data.
External NAICS Code	External Industry Description
211	oll and gass estraction
42311	Automobile and other motor vehicle Merchant Wholesalers
4235	Metal and Mineral Merchant Wholesalers
I would expect the result to be:
NAICS Code	Industry Description	External NAICS Code	External Industry Description
317910	Abrasive Product Manufacturing
423430	Computer and Computer Peripheral Equipment and Software Merchant Wholesalers	42311	Automobile and other motor vehicle Merchant Wholesalers
423510	Metal Service Centers and Other Metal Merchant Wholesalers	4235	Metal and Mineral Merchant Wholesalers
Can you help automate this logic?

[#2]

@redridgie  In the attached I copied your message text/example and my suggested formula:

=FILTER($A$17:$B$19,IFERROR(SEARCH($A$17:$A$19,A26),0)=1,"na")

my suggested formula does NOT agree with you sample results as I do NOT agree with your sample results.  the category 423430 is not a  subset of 42311 and the descriptions are not compatible.  Note that this formula may pull more than 1 result so you may want a variation like:

=INDEX(SORT(FILTER($A$17:$B$19,IFERROR(SEARCH($A$17:$A$19,A26),0)=1,"na"),,-1),1,)

to get the longest matching code.

[#3]

Thank you very much! Can you walk me through the formula as I don't understand what it is doing.

[#4]

sure. As with all formulas you start in the middle most () so:
FILTER($A$17:$B$19,IFERROR(SEARCH($A$17:$A$19,A26),0)=1,"na")
this FILTER will filter the rows in A17:B19 if the condition is true and that condition is:

IFERROR(SEARCH($A$17:$A$19,A26),0)=1

which is checking if it can find (i.e. search) the code from column A (A17:A19) inside this row's code value (A26) and it must be found starting at position 1 because a code like 123 we don't want to "match" inside a code 45123.  the IFERROR is to catch when the code is NOT found and returns a 0 and hence a false.
So that filter will return all the rows from the code table that have codes that "match" and then that list is SORT from biggest to smallest
and finally it takes the 1st row (i.e. INDEX(..., 1, ) ). note we could also have used TAKE(... , 1) instead