How to Use VLOOKUP by Date in Google Sheets

VLOOKUP by Date in Google Sheets is a powerful function that allows you to search for a specific date in a dataset and return the corresponding value from another column. Here's how to use VLOOKUP by Date in Google Sheets:

1. Make sure your data is organized with the dates in the first column and the data you want to look up in the adjacent columns.
2. Ensure that the dates are formatted correctly in Google Sheets. To do this, select the cells containing the dates, click on "Format" in the top menu, then click on "Number," and choose "Date" or another appropriate date format.

Now, let's move on to the example:

Example: Using VLOOKUP by Date

Suppose you have the following dataset containing dates and corresponding sales figures:

You want to find the sales figures for a specific date, say 01/02/2021. Here's how to use VLOOKUP by Date in Google Sheets to achieve this:

1. In an empty cell, type the following formula:

=VLOOKUP("01/02/2021", A1:B4, 2, FALSE)

2. Press Enter.

Here's a breakdown of the formula:

• "01/02/2021": This is the date you want to search for in the dataset. Make sure to enclose the date in double quotes.
• A1:B4: This is the range of your dataset, including the dates and the sales figures.
• 2: This is the column index number, which refers to the column number in the specified range containing the data you want to return. In this case, the sales figures are in the second column.
• FALSE: This tells Google Sheets to perform an exact match search for the date. If you use TRUE, it will perform an approximate match search, which may return incorrect results.

After pressing Enter, the formula will return the sales figure for the specified date, which is 1500 in this case. If the date is not found in the dataset, the formula will return an error message (#N/A).