SUMPRODUCT - Month AND Year

I wonder if anyone can help with this formula.

I can calculate the number of items when I specify the range, i.e. =SUMPRODUCT(--(MONTH(External!I$54:I$69)=3))
...in this instance for March. The range is all historic rows for 2014.

How do I expand this for the whole of Column I which will contain multiple Years?

I want to iliminate the potential of adding additional rows and forgetting to change the formula.

Or

=SUMPRODUCT(--(TEXT(External!I$54:I$69,"mmmyy")="Mar14"))

Thanks......that is fine for the range 54 to 69 but how do i apply this to the whole column?

I would recommend NOT referencing the whole column.
There's over 1 million rows on a sheet, and it will evaluate every single one of them.
That's Alot of unnecessary calculations.

Just stick to the actual used range of rows.

In the range 54 to 69 the date is all for 2014.

I want to expand the range so 2015, 2016 etc data is included automatically.

Change

External!I$54:I$69

To whatever range covers ALL of the date data...
Say
External!I$2:I$1000

COUNTIFS is more flexible with using entire column references.
It will calculate only the used range..

Maybe Try

=COUNTIFS(External!I:I,">="&DATE(2014,3,1),External!I:I,"<="&DATE(2014,3,31))

That works. Many thanks.

You're welcome.