Linking data in cells among worksheets

[chinanomad]

I'm trying to create a workbook that has 3 worksheets. The goal is to pull edited information from an excel file into the workbook.

Worksheet 1: General information
Worksheet 2: Weekly updates
Worksheet 3: Monthly updates (initial load)

At the beginning of the month (i.e. the initial load). The information is pasted in WS 3. I have a Vlookup to linked to WS 1 to pull information from WS 1 to WS 3.

On WS 2, I created a index/match function to pull the information from WS 3 to WS 2. It works fine as long as the information on WS 3 matches (row/column) the information on WS 2. However, if I upload new data into WS 2 (same data, but the order changes) the index/match formula does not work.

The Vlookup is tied to a customer ID # on WS 1. The index/match is tied to a sales order #.

Am I not using the index/match correctly or is there a better function (formula) in excel to use rather than the index/match? I would like to keep this as simple as possible. would appreciate any advice to better understand this challenge.

[FDibbins]

Please take a moment to read the forum rules and then amend your thread title to something descriptive of your problem - not what you think the answer might be. (think google search terms?). Once you have done this please send me a PM and I will remove this request. (Also, include a link to your thread - copy from the address bar)

Many members search our previous posts, and thread titles play a big part of the search. I doubt anybody would do a search based on your title?

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[FDibbins]

Thanks for the title change

A few observations...
1. On Initial, although the way you have your vlookup, is working, the search criteria really should be a single cell...
instead of...
=VLOOKUP($A$2:$A$5,'Sheet 1'!$A$2:$C$32,3,FALSE)
rather use...
=VLOOKUP($A2,'Sheet 1'!$A$2:$C$32,3,FALSE)
copied down

2. On sheet2 col Q&R, you are searching in a range that already contains the criteria. Realistically, you should have a criteria in 1 cell, and search for that in a totally different range - else why even bother to search for it?
MATCH('Sheet 2'!J3,'Sheet 2'!$J$2:$J$5,0)
You are searching for J3 in the range J2:J5, so it will always return the same relative row number

Which sheet gets the new data with each update, and which sheets go and fetch/reference parts of that update?