Hi all. I am really sorry that my first post is a ridiculous question like this, but I've exhausted my knowledge (and interest of those I know who know more than I do...lol) of Excel at this point and am in dire need of assistance.
The basic need that I have is to identify entries (people) by zip code as to whether they are in specific metropolitan areas, and have Excel return which area they are in (e.g. NY-NY Metro, Los Angeles Metro, etc...). I have a little over 3000 people entries and the top 100 metro areas (several thousand zip codes) that I need to analyze people by.
All of the metro Zip codes are on a separate sheet where the first column of each metro area are the zip codes themselves, and the second column has the name of that metro area. The other sheet has the lookup value (Zip Code) and the target cell for excel to return which metro area the person is in.
I could sort by state and just plug in individual nested formulas for each metro area within that state, but some metro areas cross state lines (sometimes several) so that would not always work. Is there a function that tells excel that my data is in paired columns, and to return column 2 of a specific pair if it hits a match in column 1?
To return just one specific Metro area I was using this: =VLOOKUP(A2,'Metro Zip Codes'!$A$2:$B$5,2,FALSE)
I would like to be able to have excel do that, but with 100 different metro areas returning to the same column.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
The basic need that I have is to identify entries (people) by zip code as to whether they are in specific metropolitan areas, and have Excel return which area they are in (e.g. NY-NY Metro, Los Angeles Metro, etc...). I have a little over 3000 people entries and the top 100 metro areas (several thousand zip codes) that I need to analyze people by.
All of the metro Zip codes are on a separate sheet where the first column of each metro area are the zip codes themselves, and the second column has the name of that metro area. The other sheet has the lookup value (Zip Code) and the target cell for excel to return which metro area the person is in.
I could sort by state and just plug in individual nested formulas for each metro area within that state, but some metro areas cross state lines (sometimes several) so that would not always work. Is there a function that tells excel that my data is in paired columns, and to return column 2 of a specific pair if it hits a match in column 1?
To return just one specific Metro area I was using this: =VLOOKUP(A2,'Metro Zip Codes'!$A$2:$B$5,2,FALSE)
I would like to be able to have excel do that, but with 100 different metro areas returning to the same column.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
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