Creating a searchable training database

Hello

I'm creating a spreadsheet at the moment which summarises all the training records the company has on its employees (i.e., First Aid, Fire Marshal etc).

The records are arranged so the first column (A) shows the surname and first letter of the first name. Afterwards each training item uses two columns, one as a simple 'yes/no' to show if the employee has been trained, and the adjacent column shows the date that re-training is required.

What I want to create is a form whereby if you type the employee name into a cell, other cells in the form will populate with the data on that employee, creating a simple summary sheet that can be easily printed. I’ve looked into V & HLOOKUP and SUMPRODUCT formulas but to no real avail as they only return numeric values it seems.

If anyone can help in solving this problem it would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

I'm not sure how are your skills in this, but have you considered using a pivot table?

You Could have the "employee name" in the "page" section of the pivot table and the other atributes in the column section.

Everytime you selected a employee in the page section the records woul change accordingly.