No, I'm never insulted when it comes to Excel, and I appreciate all the help
I could get. I'm still having trouble with it. Perhaps if I ID the pertinent
data on each sheet, and their columns, you'll see exactly what I need.

Sheet A
B K S (my Vlookups results)
U
12345 NNNNNYY THUFRI =If "sheeta!"S2="sheetB!"
L2,"","Alert"


Sheet B L
B
12345 TUEWED

So U2 would show the ALERT because the sheet A THUFRI did not match the
Sheet B TUEWED
But it won't be that simple for my if/alert formula, because remember the
same employees are in different rows on each sheet, and some are on A & not
on B, and vice-versa. That's why I think the indirect match is needed, which
I can't grasp.

Thanks again,

Steve

"Bob Bridges" wrote:

Right you are, I missed what you were (I see now) saying very plainly. Yeah,
I agree you need a conversion from NNYNYNN format to TUETHU format. You have
one now, I gather, so that part's taken care of, right? What comes after
that? I mean, how much have you already figured out and what are you asking
about next?

I don't want to sound insulting by telling you something that was already
obvious to you, but I'll tell you how I'd go about it, just off-hand:

1) In both sheets: EmpNbrs in col A, other stuff (name etc) in cols B-D,
days off in col E. I'll pretend that on SheetA the days-off format is MONTUE
and on SheetB it's NYYNNNN.

2) In both sheets, =MATCH in column N.

3) In SheetB col O, a conversion of col E's NYYNNNN days-off value to MONTUE
format, to match SheetA.

4) In SheetA col F, a check to see whether this employee's days off match
the same schedule on SheetB, using IF functions and INDIRECT, maybe like this:

=IF(ISERROR(N3),"Emp not on SheetB",IF(INDIRECT("SheetB!O"&N3+1)=E3,"Emp
matches","Alert: DaysOff nomatch!"))

Of course you'd choose different messages, probably blank ones in at least
one of those cases.

That formula has a lot of pieces in it, so take your time. N3+1 contains
the row the same employee is in on SheetB, so INDIRECT("SheetB!O"&N3+1) gives
you that row's converted days-off code so you can compare it with col E on
this sheet, which is the point here. Did I do any better?

--- "Steve" wrote:
OK, I'm confused on the indirect match.

I did do a vlookup with a table to change the , e.g. YYNNNNN to SATSUN, the
NNYYNNN to MONTUE, etc. so that at least the YYNNNNN format stuff will be in
the SATSUN format.

Now,
Sheet A
ID # Days Off
12345 SATSUN,

but on sheet B, if the same ID shows different days off

Sheet B
ID # Days Off
12345 MONTUE "'Alert"

That's when I want that alert to show, such as if(SATSUN=SATSUN),
then "","ALERT". Also remember that I have many of those Employee
ID's, and when those IDs are on both of those sheets, I'd like it to
check the days off as above.

--- "Steve" wrote:
Regarding the NNNNNYY stuff, I don't think I explained it clearly.
One source shows the days off of Sat & Sun in this format -YYNNNNN
The other source shows it in this format - SATSUN.
Most of the time, both sheets/formats will show the same days off, though
sometimes they don't. I need to indentify when they don't match, so I figured
I have to first convert the YYNNNNN format to the SATSUN format, and then use
the formula alert as 'days off don't match".

--- "Bob Bridges" wrote:
It isn't clear to me why it would make any difference whether you compared
"NNYYNNN" with "NYNYNNN" or "WETH" with "TUTH", or whatever; they're still
not going to match, so you're still going to have the right criteria for your
"days off don't match" message.

--- "Steve" wrote:
Also, I don't understand the indirect part for the days-off values.
I'm also thinking I may have to create maybe a table to show:

NNNNNYYN = THUFRI
NNNNYYNN = WEDTHU
NNNYYNNN = TUEWED
NNYYYYYY = SATSUN

etc, to start with. Then to compare/match the alphabetical days off, and if no
match, "days off don't match" . Basically if John 12345 on sheet A is showing
NNYYYYY ( which means off Sat & Sun), but on sheet B he's showing
TUEWED, I need that to tell me that his days off don't match.