Formulas to autosum shift hours

I use a spreadsheet to calculate work hours monthly
I created a Vlookup table so A shift =4hrs B shift=6 hrs C=8hr etc
On the spreadsheet if A1 is John and B1-W1 are the various shifts he worked within this period. Can I have a formulas to sum up the total hours automatically. TIA

I'm guessing a bit here since you didn't attach a workbook with your layout , but you can sum hours represented by A, B and C in B1:W1 this way:
=COUNTIF(B1:W1,"A")*4+COUNTIF(B1:W1,"B")*6+COUNTIF(B1:W1,"C")*8

Thanks for your prompt reply. I wonder how many " countif " allowed.

Not sure, but there can't be that many types of shifts?
If this is a problem, you could always make a summary table to sum hours for each type of shift first.

I have tried it and I can put in 10+ "countif" but the formulas is very long.
I just setup a Vlookup table to define A=4, B=6 etc and wonder if I can sum the hours using the table to make the formulas shorter.

Hi
better to attach a small sample of your data with what you have and what you need - Much easier than guesswork

I don't really understand what you mean by using vlookup to define A, B and C. Apart from that It is entirely possible that you can construct a formula to make the calculation in one cell for each person. To me, it however seems much easier to use a table with names as row,the different shifttypes as columns, and the values being count of the shifttype multiplied by hours for that particular shift.

Thanks Estige, this is exactly what I need. Sorry to ask stupid question but I am not too familiar with Excel.
What kind of table I need ?

Thanks DonkeyOte, it works like a charm. Now I can put my calculator away
Thanks again