Associate External Data with an added column

Hi All,

I would like to associate an additional column with some information that I
get by using an external query in excel. Whenever I do the refresh, my data
columns don't always line up. Is there a way to tie the data to a particular
key.

For example, I have a customer number and their name that come from a
database. I then add an additional column called comments. I then requery
the database and my data no longer lines up if more customers were added.

Check for help on the VLOOKUP function; it retrieves data from another table
based on a common key. So you'd get your query results onto another sheet.
Then in your main table, you'd put a formula such as:
=vlookup(cust#,data_table,data_table_column,false). That will pull back
into your main table the first comments regarding that customer from the
query results. If there are no query results for that customer, you'd get
back #N/A. You could get around that with a slightly more complex formula:
=if(isna(vlookup_function),"",vlookup_function), where vlookup_function is
the first function above (without the = sign).
Hope this points you in the right direction... --Bruce

"cujimm" wrote:

>
> Hi All,
>
> I would like to associate an additional column with some information that I
> get by using an external query in excel. Whenever I do the refresh, my data
> columns don't always line up. Is there a way to tie the data to a particular
> key.
>
> For example, I have a customer number and their name that come from a
> database. I then add an additional column called comments. I then requery
> the database and my data no longer lines up if more customers were added.
>
>