Hi Armando

Working file sent to you.
As Gord pointed out, the result you were getting was the serial date for 4th
August 2005. However, you should have got P07-05 which is the correct
period, so your VLOOKUP is picking up one column too few. The offset needs
to be one greater in the formula, which either means you have not set up
your table the same as me, or you did not copy the formula.

Anyway, take a look at the file I have sent you.

Regards

Roger Govier


Armando Martellini wrote:
Roger thank you again for your patience, i tried everything and verified that
my range was correct, but i can't seem to make it work, the result i get is
38568 which doesn't make any sense. can you please send me the spreadsheet
you created my address is

"Roger Govier" wrote:


Sorry Armando

Hit the send button before posting the revised formula
=IF(D1="","",VLOOKUP(D1,Periods,2))

Regards

Roger Govier


Roger Govier wrote:

Hi Armando

Yes I did try it and it works.
I can send you a file direct if you let me have you email address.

#Name suggests you haven't managed to set up the named range correctly.
Try InsertNameDefine and in the top Name pane type Periods, and in the
lower pane Refers to type =$A$1:$B$13

You would get a #N/A result if there is no data in D1 or any other cell
being used as the lookup. This can be overcome by modifying the formula
I gave as follows


Regards

Roger Govier


Armando wrote:


Roger, i did exactly as you said but the formula returns a #REF value
or a #NAME (depending on how i try to "move around" the information.
have you tried the formula on a spreadsheet? if so would you be so
kind to send it to me, i can't figure out what i'm doing wrong. my
e-mail address is .
Thanks (again)

"Roger Govier" wrote:



Hi Armando

Because we are not using the 4th argument of VLOOKUP, False or 0,
then instead of looking for an exact match, Vlookup returns the
highest value that does not exceed the lookup value.

Therefore with the table as I had set it out, as long as you
continued it on downward to give values for all periods through to
P12-05, (as below), then with a date to be looked up of 23/7/2005,
this is less than 04/08/2005, so it would take the previous value of
30/06/2005 which has P06-05 in the column next to it.

i.e. 23/07/2005 is between 30/06/2005 and 04/08/2005

NB Dates here in UK format as opposed to US format as posted to you
in my previous response.

04/01/2005 P01-05
03/02/2005 p02-05
31/03/2005 p03-05
05/05/2005 P04-05
02/06/2005 P05-05
30/06/2005 P06-05
04/08/2005 P07-05
01/09/2005 P08-05
29/09/2005 P09-05
03/10/2005 P10-05
01/12/2005 P11-05
29/12/2005 P12-05
02/02/2006 P12-05


Regards

Roger Govier


Armando Martellini wrote:


Roger, maybe i didn't understand your instructions, but i can't seem
to make it work, in the vlookup you suggested, i can't find any
indication that i'm looking for a value in between 2 ranges to get
the "period" value. can you advice? Thanks for your help

"Roger Govier" wrote:




Hi Armando

Set up a table as follows:-
A1 = 1/4/2005 B1 = P01-05
A2 = 2/3/2005 B2 = P02-05
A3 = 31/3/2005 B3 = P03-05
etc.

Mark the range of cells and in the white pane to the left of column
A and above Row 1, type Periods and press Enter. This will create a
named range

Wherever you have entered on your sheet 23/7/2005 , lets say in
cell D1, enter in E1
=VLOOKUP(D1,Periods,2)


Regards

Roger Govier


Armando Martellini wrote:



Jay i think i simplified the problem a little too much, my actual
"table of reference" is this:
BEGINN ENDING PERIOD Dates
1/4/2005 2/3/2005 P01-05 7/23/2005
2/4/2005 3/31/2005 P02-05 8/9/2005
4/1/2005 5/5/2005 P03-05 8/8/2005
5/6/2005 6/2/2005 P04-05 8/18/2005
6/3/2005 6/30/2005 P05-05 8/10/2005
7/1/2005 8/4/2005 P06-05 8/12/2005
8/5/2005 9/1/2005 P07-05 8/24/2005
9/2/2005 9/29/2005 P08-05 9/30/2005
10/3/2005 P09-05 10/4/2005 12/1/2005
P10-05 12/2/2005 12/29/2005 P11-05 12/30/2005
2/2/2006 P12-05
so, i don't need just the month, can you please assist? thanks





"Jay" wrote:





i have: BEGINN ENDING PERIOD Dates
01/01/05 01/31/05 P01-05 07/23/05
01/02/05 28/02/05 P02-05 08/09/05
01/03/05 31/03/05 P03-05 08/08/05
01/04/05 30/04/05 P04-05 08/18/05
01/05/05 31/05/05 P05-05 08/10/05
01/06/05 30/06/05 P06-05 08/12/05
01/07/05 31/07/05 P07-05 08/24/05
01/08/05 31/08/05 P08-05 01/09/05
30/09/05 P09-05 01/10/05 31/20/05
P10-05 01/11/05 30/11/05 P11-05
01/12/05 31/12/05 P12-05 i would like a formula
that looking at the "Dates", would place the
date in the correct "Period" according to the "beginning" and
"Ending"
of the chart, can anybody help me please?


First clean up the date formats. It appears that the beginning
and ending dates have different day/month orders.

I'm assuming column E is the Dates column.
If the ranges are always the calendar months. You can put =E2
in cell F2 and copy down, then select column F use:
Format Cells Number Custom Pmm"-"yy

Otherwise, you might want to look into the VLOOKUP function.