Vlookup with concatenate?

**Lolprotiens** · 05-01-2011, 06:42 PM

Hi people!

I am having a problem with vlookup. I am wondering if I "=Concatenate" 2 columns then use that concatenated value as the lookup_vlaue in vlookup does it still work? Currently I am getting errors.

I deal with roughly 1500 observations at work and this would tremendously cut down time.

The reason I concatenate is because the data is listed as a course number, section number, then CRN. I want to get the CRN. Some courses are such; 6001, 9001, 7002, then the section numbers identifies them. So to make that value a unique number I concatenate and I get 60011 ( this value is now unique to the spreadsheet )

I attached a demo workbook it only shows a few observations but it is enough to get the point across.

Please help!!!

**martindwilson** · 05-01-2011, 06:49 PM

just use
=INDEX(Sheet1!$C$1:$C$2000,MATCH(A2&B2,INDEX(Sheet1!$A$1:$A$2000&Sheet1!$B$1:$B$2000,0),0))
then you can do away with concatenated columns f altogether
(edited to correct index inside match)

**Lolprotiens** · 05-01-2011, 07:04 PM

Alright, that worked considering they all matched up. This is just a demo though, Course & sect numbers will never line up on both sheets.

To elaborate better, Sheet 1 will be where I want to take the CRN from, Sheet 1 will list all of the courses, but I am not using all of the courses, so thats why I figured I would have to use vlookup but I am not sure.

Thank you for your quick response but sorry I didn't elaborate on that.

Attached is more of what it would like.