Hello all,

I am having trouble with combining different datasets in excel, which I hope you could help me with!

In our study, participants received feedback which they had to rate on usefulness. This resulted in two separate datasets: one with feedback received and one with feedback rated (which is not the same as the feedback received, as we have some missing data because participants did not rate all feedback).

For example:

Dataset 1
name - feedback_date - feedback_received (code)
john -------- 10/10/2014 ------- A1
john -------- 11/10/2014 ------- A2
john -------- 12/10/2014 ------- A3
john -------- 13/10/2014 ------- A4
mary ------- 10/10/2014 ------- A1
mary ------- 11/10/2014 ------- A2
mary ------- 12/10/2014 ------- A3
mary ------- 13/10/2014 ------- A4

Dataset 2
name ---- feedback_date - feedback_received (code) - rating of feedback
john -------- 10/10/2014 ---------------- A1 ---------------------- 2
john -------- 12/10/2014 ---------------- A3 ---------------------- 7
mary ------- 12/10/2014 ---------------- A3 ---------------------- 5
mary ------- 13/10/2014 ---------------- A4 ---------------------- 4



I want to combine these datasets so that the end result is that I have Dataset 1 with the ratings of the feedback added to it. To do this, I was thinking about comparing the data in these two datasets based on participant's name, the date the feedback was received, and the actual feedback that was received (which is coded). When these three variables are the same, I want the ratings to be added to the first dataset.
This is the end result that I would like to get (empty rating lines are missing data):

name - feedback_date - feedback_received - rating of feedback
john ------------- 10/10/2014 ----------- A1 ----------- 2
john ------------- 11/10/2014 ----------- A2
john ------------- 12/10/2014 ----------- A3 ----------- 7
john ------------- 13/10/2014 ----------- A4
mary ------------ 10/10/2014 ----------- A1
mary ------------ 11/10/2014 ----------- A2
mary ------------ 12/10/2014 ----------- A3 ----------- 5
mary ------------ 13/10/2014 ----------- A4 ----------- 4


I have tried several things using the VLOOKUP statement, but first of all I am not very familiar with this command, and second of all I am not sure whether the VLOOKUP statement is able to compare several columns at once.

I hope this is possible in Excel and I hope you guys can help me!

Thanks,

Rik