VLookup and Min Date

[edubs77]

Hi - I have a data set with customer purchases, and I'm looking to get the date of their earliest purchase. I have their name in column A and the dates of their purchase in column B. How do I create two new columns that has customer name in one column and their earliest purchase date in the second? Thanks for your help!

[Crooza]

Hi and welcome
Pivot table. Use customer name and minimum of the date

[Tony Valko]

Try this...

If you don't already have a list of the unique names you can use advanced filter to generate it:

http://contextures.com/xladvfilter01.html#FilterUR

Data Range

	A	B	C	D	E
1	Name	Date	------	Name	Date
2	Name3	9/29/2008		Name1	7/2/2007
3	Name4	4/13/2014		Name2	8/11/2010
4	Name5	7/22/2011		Name3	5/8/2008
5	Name4	11/29/2002		Name4	11/29/2002
6	Name2	8/11/2010		Name5	7/22/2011
7	Name1	3/10/2008
8	Name3	5/8/2008
9	Name4	8/2/2004
10	Name1	7/2/2007
11	Name5	7/30/2011

This array formula** entered in E2:

=MIN(IF(A$2:A$11=D2,B$2:B$11))

** array formulas need to be entered using the key
combination of CTRL,SHIFT,ENTER (not just ENTER).
Hold down both the CTRL key and the SHIFT key
then hit ENTER.

Format as Date

Copy down as needed