COUNTIFS to count display value, not cell value

I am trying to use COUNTIFS to count a date displayed as "1-Mar-14" but the value is "03/01/2014".

I would like to get a value from column F (which is merged with G and H) and only count the times it occurs within a date range, in column I.

So far I have tried these.

=COUNTIFS('SHEET NAME'!F:H, "*Topic*",'SHEET NAME'!I:I, "*Mar*")

This one gives me "#value" as a result.

Also:
=COUNTIFS('SHEET NAME'!F:H, "*Topic*",'SHEET NAME'!I:I, ">=03/01/2014",'SHEET NAME'!I:I, "<=03/31/2014")

This one works, but only for the month of January (01/01/2014 to 01/31/2014).

I know that COUNTIFS only works if the range selections are the same, so I even tried unmerging FGH into just F:F. But this didn't work either.

I would like to know if it's possible to get a COUNTIFS function to count the displayed value (in this case, the month) rather than the actual function value (01/01/2014).

Any advice? Or perhaps a better way to do what I want?

Thanks.

Could you post a sample workbook?

I'm having a hard time understanding this.

Originally Posted by crescentfresh

=COUNTIFS('SHEET NAME'!F:H, "*Topic*",'SHEET NAME'!I:I, ">=03/01/2014",'SHEET NAME'!I:I, "<=03/31/2014")

This one works, but only for the month of January (01/01/2014 to 01/31/2014).

If that formula worked, that's counting MARCH, but you then say it only works for January?


+1 on posting a sample book.