Word that represents number?

I'm not sure how what the function is called but I'm hoping it exists. Basically;

When filling out a time sheet all the shifts are one of a few, there are early's (07:30 - 15:30) Late's (15:00 - 23:00) sleeps (just paid for the staying the night, flat rate) and [rarer] Mids (11:00 - 19:00)

So instead of filling out ' 07:30' and '15:30' on a sheet it would be great if i could just put 'early' or even 'e' and excel would know that this represented the time 07:30 - 15:30 and calculations could be done of it.

Is this possible?

cheers

Yes. You can use VLOOKUP function in calculation.

Ah OK, I've never actually used VLOOKUP before, I'll have a search here first.

Cheers

Cheers all, I thought I should attach what I've been working on now.

I've used an excel table because the amount of shifts that someone may do in a month can vary (someone may have covered loads) so that as a table it will just bump stuff down.

The wage calculation (in D22) can also vary depending on the position of the person, different time sheet would have to be created for each position...? I guess...

The green box that says 'shift patterns' is the array VLOOKUP references, It works, not sure if there's a way to hide this or not?

Then the formulas working out the cost beneath the table need to be presented a bit better, but that's layout.

I would like to make all the formulas fixed though, so that people can enter in information but they can't inadvertently delete / change any of the formulas. Not sure how to do this.

So thanks, any tips much appreciated

Hey Dibbins! The data validation is really neat

I don't think I'm following all of the formula though.... :/

=IF(A3="","",VLOOKUP(A3,$G$2:$I$5,3,0))

So the 'IF' function there is making it so that a blank entry displays blank fields in the start / end slots...?

Is the data validation part of the formula or a separate cell formatting?

thanks