I'm trying to count the number of cells in a column matching a couple different sets of criterion. Column B has the first match up, purely based on text. Column F is a date/time in the format #/##/#### ##:##". Example: 7/1/2014 0:00. Consistently in the data, single digit months and days are represented by one character instead of two (e.g. April 7th is 4/7/2014 instead of 04/07/2014).

I don't care about the day in the comparison. I need monthly totals -- so all with any date in July 2014, for example. I also do not care about the time.

My formula:

=COUNTIFS('MG-Kinders'!$B:$B,"=Almond",'MG-Kinders'!$F:$F,"9/1/2014 0:00")

...correctly returns the number 17--17 cells that match "Almond" in column B and all September 1st midnight dates in column F. I am trying now to use wildcards to test for any date and any time in September 2014. So I tried the following formula:

=COUNTIFS('MG-Kinders'!$B:$B,"=Almond",'MG-Kinders'!$F:$F,"9/??/2014*")

...which incorrectly returned 0. It should at least return those 17 if I were doing this right. So then I tried these variations, all to the same 0 result:

=COUNTIFS('MG-Kinders'!$B:$B,"=Almond",'MG-Kinders'!$F:$F,"9/*/2014*")
=COUNTIFS('MG-Kinders'!$B:$B,"=Almond",'MG-Kinders'!$F:$F,"9/*/2014 ??:??")
=COUNTIFS('MG-Kinders'!$B:$B,"=Almond",'MG-Kinders'!$F:$F,"9/??/2014 ??:??")

Can anyone help me out here? What am I doing wrong with this formula? How do I use the wildcards correctly?

dt