Excel is a tool for working with and analyzing numbers. Among its functions, VLOOKUP is not a tool for handling numbers directly; it is a function used at the stage of creating the data you want to work with. If you are new to the basic VLOOKUP function for building your own data, understanding its structure will help you apply it and create your own data with this essential Excel function.
What Is VLOOKUP?
To organize Excel data the way you want and make it easier to analyze, you need to consolidate data. Once you create the data, you can use analysis to support and communicate your ideas, assumptions, and predictions.
For those who may not immediately understand what the word “data” means, here is a brief explanation of why building data well is important in Excel.
It means identifying what you need for the analysis you want to perform, checking the sources and file formats available for collecting that data, and gathering the collected data into a single Excel worksheet.
VLOOKUP is an essential basic Excel function for collecting this type of data. Once you master it, you may eventually reach a point where you no longer need VLOOKUP, but until then, you need to understand the VLOOKUP function in your own way.
If the data you want is collected from multiple sources and must be consolidated from separate files, you need to use VLOOKUP to find and retrieve related data from each file based on a specific value. VLOOKUP is used to retrieve vertically arranged data using the criteria value you choose.
“When you want to retrieve a vertical value from other collected data”
= VLOOKUP(“a value found in all files that can serve as the criteria“,”the range containing the other data“,”the position of the value you want within that range“,”enter 0 to retrieve an exact match”)
With the criteria value positioned on the left and the values you want to retrieve arranged vertically to the right, VLOOKUP retrieves an exact value after you enter the desired position as a number.
Using VLOOKUP
If you want to use VLOOKUP to retrieve values based on multiple criteria rather than a single criterion, see the link below.
If the VLOOKUP function returns a #N/A or #VALUE! error,
If VLOOKUP does not work because of differences between number and text formats,
If you want to learn more about VLOOKUP, check the link below to resolve the issue.