Apologies if this has been answered, but I couldn't find anything quite suiting what I need.

I have a set of cells that may contain numeric values, or letters indicating something specific. 8 = 8 hours worked, A = absence, V = vacation, P = paid leave and so on. I'm trying to sum and count the various values. I have a worksheet function the does the job, but it's messy, and I'd like a cleaner version. What I have now is a series of CountIfs: CountIf(a1:a10,"A") + CountIf(a1:a10,"V") + CountIf(a1:a10,"P").

I found a post in another forum showing how to do this with an array formula, like this: =IF(OR(A3=1, A3=4, A3=7, A3=10),1,0) can be replaced by this: =(OR( A1 = {1,4,7,10} ) ) * 1

However, I have been unable to adapt this to my own use. I either get errors or wrong values. What I am trying to build is something like this: CountIf(or( J10:AN10 = {"N";"O";"P";"V";"D";"A";"S"} ))

I have entered many version of it, as a normal formula and array formula, neither works. Is this even possible?

Pete