Struggling with VLOOKUP

**cbwinters** · 03-31-2023, 12:37 PM

Hello,

I thought I was confident in using Excel but I'm struggling to make VLOOKUP work how I want it to.

I have 2 sheets both with data laid out differently. In Sheet1 I want column A to be a list of reference numbers and then column B to have a list of names associated with those reference numbers. In Sheet2 I want it to have a similar list of reference numbers in Column A but then in Column B I want it to auto populate by looking at what is in Sheet1.

So for example in Sheet1 cell A1 will have the value "11111" and B1 "John". On Sheet2 I want it to populate any B column cell with "John" that has an A column cell that says "11111". If it can't find a match then it should simply say "N/A" or "Not Found".

I'm trying to match up names to reference numbers based on a separate set of data and I'm struggling to make this work. I hope this makes sense!

**etaf** · 03-31-2023, 12:48 PM

that should work, providing the value is a number and not text
ie
"11111" is different to 11111

whats the formula

=vlookup( cell with the ID , range including the ID column and return column , False)

=vlookup( A2, sheet1!A:B, 2, false)

A sample sheet would help here

The forum does allow for spreadsheets to be uploaded direct to the forum -

Please see the Yellow Banner at the top of the page explaining how to attach a sample spreadsheet

A good sample workbook has just 10-20 rows of representative data that has been desensitised. It also has expected results mocked up, relevant cells highlighted and a few explanatory notes.

Here are the instructions, found at the top of the page again

Post a small Excel sheet (not a picture) showing realistic & representative sample data WITHOUT confidential information (10-20 rows, not thousands...) and some manually calculated results. For a new thread (1st post), scroll to Manage Attachments, otherwise scroll down to GO ADVANCED, click, and then scroll down to MANAGE ATTACHMENTS and click again. Now follow the instructions at the top of that screen.