You should be able to do this using the COUNTIF or LOOKUP functions. If you
go to the help menu and type in Worksheet Functions, the ensuing list of
choices should include an option for a "list of worksheet functions" with a
basic description of wht each one does. If this gets you no further, let me
know.

"richzip" wrote:

I have a very large spreadsheet of data for approx 400 employees. Each
employee has a row for each date, and some employees have 2 rows for some
dates. I want to quickly calculate the number of days worked for each
employee, and also calculate the average number of days worked for each
employee.

Is there some way I can do this quickly? I know I can use a pivot table to
make a count by employee, but can I set it up to only count cells that
contain certain characters? Also, if an employee has 2 rows for a specific
date, can it only count that date once?

On the example below, it would count anything with XX or CBUS as a day
worked. since 2/4 has 2 lines, this employee worked a total of 3 days.

ID Date Activity
5 2/1 OFF
5 2/2 XX100
5 2/3 CBUS
5 2/4 XX101
5 2/4 XX102
5 2/5 SICK
5 2/6 OFF