Get Vlookup to look at multiple Rows for the answer

I am working in Excel 2003.
I have a table of data that has been extracted from a database. It details
peoples name / month / basic pay / grade / hours over a period of 12 months.
For each person there are 13 lines, one for each month and then a total.
I am analysing this data for a pay award and need to put the basic pay
figure for each month into a cell on another spreadsheet.
I need the formula to find the right combination of name in column A, and
date in column b and then the answer is the base pay in column c on that row.
I have been trying to put together the right combination of Vlookup and
other logical functions, but have not succeeded.
Please help.

It sounds to me as though you could just delete a few columns and sort. But
if you want to use formulas to pull the pay, I'd use the database functions.
Since you should only have one entry per person per month, the DSUM function
should do. You'll still have to create the data for columns A and B (name
and month). Then use DSUM with the extracted data as your database. The
criteria for the DSUM would be something like $A1:B2.
Since that criteria would include additional rows as you autofill down,
you'd need to subtract the results from all prior rows. Ex: in C2,
=DSUM(database, "Pay", $A1:B2). In C3, =DSUM(database, "Pay",
$A1:B3)-SUM(C$2:C2). Then autofill from C3 down.


"KDuxbury" wrote:

> I am working in Excel 2003.
> I have a table of data that has been extracted from a database. It details
> peoples name / month / basic pay / grade / hours over a period of 12 months.
> For each person there are 13 lines, one for each month and then a total.
> I am analysing this data for a pay award and need to put the basic pay
> figure for each month into a cell on another spreadsheet.
> I need the formula to find the right combination of name in column A, and
> date in column b and then the answer is the base pay in column c on that row.
> I have been trying to put together the right combination of Vlookup and
> other logical functions, but have not succeeded.
> Please help.