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Index match minimum 2 matches or more with a single formula , maybe using indexe

ID: 3560925 • Letter: I

Question

Index match minimum 2 matches or more with a single formula , maybe using indexed value as wildcard values

hello

I recently learned the Index match and find it very useful, so far I know how to index match with multiple criteria,

but I want a single index match formula to work whenever there is more than certain numbers of criteria

for example , below works fine and I know how to

indexed table

A B C D E
1 1 1 1   ONE
2 2 2 2   TWO
3 3 3 3   THREE
4 4 4 4   FOUR
5 5 5 5   FIVE
6 6 6 6   SIX
7 7 7 7   SEVEN
8 8 8 8   EIGHT
9 9 9 9   NINE

formula

= INDEX($A$1:$E$9,MATCH(1,(K4=$A$1:$A$9)*(L4=$B$1:$B$9)*($M$4=C1:C9),0),5)

result

CRITERIA1 CRITERIA2 CRITERIA3 RESULT ( this cell is where the excel formula is)
2 2 2   TWO

but above formula works only when 3 criteria are perfect match with the indexed value,

but I want above formula to work on cases like below where the case requires minimum 2 matches

result

CRITERIA1 CRITERIA2 CRITERIA3 RESULT ( this cell is where the excel formula is)
2 2 2      TWO

random 3   3      three

4 random 4      four

(random : anything can come)

indexed table

A B C D E
1 1 1 1   ONE
2 2 2 2   TWO
3 b 3 3   THREE
4 4 b 4   FOUR
5 5 5 5   FIVE
6 6 6 6   SIX
7 7 7 7   SEVEN
8 8 8 8   EIGHT
9 9 9 9   NINE( b stands for blank)

I could do it by using multiple index match with 3criteria & 2criteria & 2criteria ( with different lookup cell),

but it takes too much time to calculate, therefore impossible to practice it in reality, ( lags too heavily )

I thought if i can put an wild card value at "b" in indexed table, i could solve it with single formula, but I could not find the way

if possible i would put wild card value for any value in cell "b" so that the formula gets the result whenever there is a match

with the minimum 2 criteria which is only condtion that matters.

does anybody know how I can put wildcard values in indexed table or how I can solve the problem ?

Explanation / Answer

(.If it is a matter of handling blanks, following Array Formula can be used -=-

= INDEX($A$1:$E$9,MATCH(1,(K4=IF($A$1:$A$9="",K4,$A$1:$A$9))*(L4=IF($B$1:$B$9="",L4,$B$1:$B$9))*($M$4=IF($C$1:$C$9="",M4,$C$1:$C$9)),0),5)

You need to tweak the above formula as per your need.@@