Hi,

If you reread the responses its there.

The portions of the formula that read

B2:B22 = "associate"

return a series of TRUE's and FALSE's even if you don't see them.

when you add a minus sign in front of this:
-(B2:B22 = "associate")
Excel change the TRUE's to -1's and the FALSE's to 0's
But we don't want negative 1's so we convert the negatives back to positive
by
--(B2:B22 = "associate")
The SUMPRODUCT function multiplies all the 0's and 1's times each other, 0*0
= 0
1*1 = 1 . 1*0 = 0*1 = 0. So anytime all conditions are met we are
multiplying a series of 1's which is 1. Anytime any of the conditions are
not met we are multiplying something times 0 which is always 0. The
SUMPRODUCT sums the 0's and 1's to give us our count.

Hope this helps.

--
Thanks,
Shane Devenshire


"Nicole Bradshaw" wrote:

Can someone tell me what the "--" does in a function? Thanks to all of you
for your help with this!

"Sandy Mann" wrote:

=SUMPRODUCT(--( B2:B22 = "associate"),--(C2:C22<""))

--
HTH

Sandy
In Perth, the ancient capital of Scotland
and the crowning place of kings


Replace @mailinator.com with @tiscali.co.uk


"Nicole Bradshaw" <Nicole wrote in
message ...
Hi, I'm trying to prepare a summary worksheet to count where
B2:B22 = "associate"
and
C2:C22 contains a date (or is not blank)

I'm sure it's doable but I'm stumped. Thanks.

Nicole