VLOOKUP Broken Formula Help!

[karlispencer26]

I have a spreadsheet that was created for me for work by someone at my previous company. Since switching to a new company and trying to pull the same data and import it into this spreadsheet it is not reading it right in 1 cell.

It seems like the formula in the output tab with the VLOOKUP is looking for the exact wording as before, but my new software that I am pulling the data from is does not shoe the exact info. Like for example instead of saying primaryresidence it says primary and instead of conventional it says conv. Could there be something in the formula that is making it so it is not reading the information and converting it correctly if it is not saying exactly what it was before?

It's combining a few different cells from the RAW DATA tab and transposing them to a little bit different wording so I can use what was in the output tab.

Obviously I am no excel expert so any help would be great!

[6StringJazzer]

Your description is hard to make sense of without seeing the data you are talking about.

If VLOOKUP is looking for "primaryresidence" but your actual data says "primary" then it is not VLOOKUP that is broken; your data is broken.

I think we're going to need to see your file. Remove any private data and attach it to a post. The paper clip icon does not work for attachments. Instead, under the text box where you type your reply click the Go Advanced button. On the next screen scroll down and click on Manage Attachments, which will show a pop-up window to Select and Upload a file. Then close the window.

[karlispencer26]

I'm sorry i'm not the best at explaining what it happening.
We are now using a new loan originating software since this template spreadsheet was created for me.
In using the new software the reports that i pull out of it are worded differently than the previous software I was pulling reports from.
I would copy the data from those reports and paste it in the raw data section of this template and it would output accordingly.
But since the new software does not word things the same in the reports that are pulled such as the examples that I gave before i.e primary vs primaryresidence it is not reading the data correctly.
So I guess I need to know how to change the formula to read the data and output it the same as before.
It's looking for EXACT wording on each cell on the output formula is what it looks like.

[karlispencer26]

Attached is the document.

John Doe is how the data is the data i'm pulling currently and Fred Brown is how it would pull from our software before.
It won't read the loan type information for John Doe since it does not look like Fred Brown. Is there any way to change that so that it doesn't have to be exact wording in the formulas?

[6StringJazzer]

It has to be the exact wording in the formulas. That is how computers work.

The way to fix this is to add the new abbreviations in the tables on hidden sheet "Lookup Tables". I tried it and eliminated the errors in I2. See my edits in cells highlighted in yellow.

[karlispencer26]

Thank you so much! This just saved me so much time. I appreciate the assistance with this!

[6StringJazzer]

Happy to help. Be aware that I may just scratched the surface--you may also have to make other changes.