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Better Alternative to VLookup and Hlookup

Best of Excel

Better Alternative to VLookup and Hlookup

by  Chance1234  Posted    (Edited  )

Personally i cant stand Vlookup & Hlookup formulas in excel, as far as im aware its just fodder left over from the days of Lotus123

A lot better way is to use sumproduct as it avoids a lot of the limitations

To give an example of this

On Sheet1 Starting at cell B2

Enter in the following column headings

GROUP , SUBGROUP , VALUE

Then under The headings enter in the following data

Code:
Adoption, 1 to 2 Years Old , 4
Adoption, 3 to 5 Years old, 5 
Adoption, 7 to 8 Years old , 2
Care, 1 to 2 Years Old , 4
Care, 3 To 5 years Old , 2
Care 7 To 8 Years Old, 3
Family 1 to 2 Years Old, 6
Family 3 To 5 Years Old, 4
Family 7 To 8 Years Old , 3

Etc etc etc etc

Now On Sheet2 starting at Cell B2

Enter in the following column headings

Type, 1 to 2 Years Old, 3 To 5 Yers old, 7 To 8 Years Old

And under Type (B3:B5)
Adoption
Care
Family

NOw using the sumproduct formula, if i want to find out how many 3 to 5 Years Olds are in Care, i enter in the formula in D4 on sheet2 as follows

Code:
=SUMPRODUCT((Sheet1!B3:B11=B4)*(Sheet1!C3:C11 =D2)*(Sheet1!D3:D11))

And baddabing theres my answer, If i also use $ signs in my formula i can simply drag this across the grid to bring back all the values

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