Formula to Remove Negative Time

[Beachmonkey]

I did a quick search and couldnt find this exact issue.

I have a spreadsheet that contains a cell with time and date of when people ask for assistance.

Another cell has the time someone assisted them.

Finally, third cell calculates the response time between call and when assistance arrived.

My problem is, occasionally some erroneous data is showing up allowing for a "assistance arrived" date and time earlier than the "call for assistance" was initiated.

What formula can i put in the calculation, so if the calculated "response time" is negative it is either blank or a zero. Currently it gives me a bunch of hashtags, and wont allow the overall average time to be calculated.

Thanks for the help!

[Richard Buttrey]

Hi,

One way would be to wrap your formula in a MAX() function. i.e

=MAX(0,your_formula)

[ChemistB]

If you want to calculate averages, then the 0's resulting from Richard's formula will screw that up. Maybe

=IF(B1-A1<0,"", B1-A1)

[Beachmonkey]

Thanks so much! And good catch on the 0 messing up the average.