Vlookup (or other) with blanks in columns

[rduncan2019]

Hello,

Apologies if this has been asked before, I may not be using the best key words to search for. I have a form which has been filled out by people and the form responses are outputted to an excel file. I want to search this file for the entries made by specific people and at first thought of a vlookup to do it. However I do not know which column will contain the information and wanted a formula to search that would skip the blanks in the row and return the first entry it finds.

My data table is as such:

Column A - unique user ID to search on
Columns B to F - one of these columns, and only one of these, will contain an entry and I am looking for that entry to be returned; data is a text string

Thank you!

 

[Eric W]

Welcome to the Board!

Try:

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J
User ID	User ID	Response
1	1
two	two
four	four
three
six
five
seven

<tbody>
[TD="align: center"]1[/TD]

[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]

[TD="align: right"][/TD]

[TD="align: center"]2[/TD]

[TD="align: right"]one[/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]

[TD="align: right"]one[/TD]

[TD="align: center"]3[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]2[/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]

[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"]2[/TD]

[TD="align: right"][/TD]

[TD="align: center"]4[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]3[/TD]

[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"]3[/TD]

[TD="align: right"][/TD]

[TD="align: center"]5[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]4[/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]

[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]

[TD="align: center"]6[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]5[/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]

[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]

[TD="align: center"]7[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]6[/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]

[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]

[TD="align: center"]8[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]7[/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]

[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]

</tbody>

Sheet5​

[TABLE="width: 85%"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD]Worksheet Formulas[TABLE="width: 100%"]
<tbody>[TR="bgcolor: [URL=https://www.mrexcel.com/forum/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=DAE7F5]#DAE7F5[/URL] "]
[TH]Cell[/TH]
[TH="align: left"]Formula[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="bgcolor: [URL=https://www.mrexcel.com/forum/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=DAE7F5]#DAE7F5[/URL] "]I2[/TH]
[TD="align: left"]=LOOKUP("zzzzzz",INDEX($B$2:$F$10,MATCH(H2,$A$2:$A$10,0),0))[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

 

[rduncan2019]

That worked beautifully, thank you! At first I thought I needed to replace the "zzzzzz" as they were a placeholder for a cell but it works just like that!

 

[Eric W]

That worked beautifully, thank you! At first I thought I needed to replace the "zzzzzz" as they were a placeholder for a cell but it works just like that!

Indeed! If you are looking for a text value, that parameter needs to be something that will be after anything you might find in your data. So "zzzzzz" will generally fill the bill!

Glad to help!