One way:

Use a cell to hold the department name that you'll want to average, say D1.

With department in B2 to B100,
And days in C2 to C100,

Try this:

=Sumif(B2:B100,D1,C2:C100)/Countif(B2:B100,D1)

--
HTH,

RD

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"Mike" wrote in message
...
Bob

I don't think this works. I don't have a specfic "Report Name" that I am
searching, only a "Department name"...here is an example:

Report ID DEPT # OF DAYS
5xt Admin 2
5xz HR 5
4rv Admin 7


I just want to average the amount of days for each department - so for
example average the Admin Department above...does this make sense?

"Bob Phillips" wrote:

=AVERAGE(IF((report_range="report
name")*(dept_range="department_name"),days_range))

which is an array formula, it should be committed with Ctrl-Shift-Enter,
not
just Enter.
Excel will automatically enclose the formula in braces (curly brackets),
do
not try to do this manually.
When editing the formula, it must again be array-entered.

--
---
HTH

Bob

(there's no email, no snail mail, but somewhere should be gmail in my
addy)



"Mike" wrote in message
...
Ok. I am having trouble devising a formula for the following problem:

I have a table that has a column that identifies a report name (key), a
column entitled DEPARTMENT (report is assigned to), and the number of
days
it
took for the report to be completed.

How can I average the amount of days it took reports to be completed
for
each department, without actually sorting the table and creating a new
table?


Is there some LOOKUP formula or ARRAY formula that I can use to look
for a
specific DEPARTMENT name, take a number in adajcent cell and add it
into
an
average function for the rest of the cells that correspond to that
department
name?

Thanks for any help.