i have 2 sheets

sheet1 has 3 fields: old id, id description, new id
sheet2 has 1 field: old id

i want to add new id to sheet2 through a vlookup

however the formula does not seem to be working..

i believe my formula is right though since i tried it with another method.

i added a new field (old id2) in sheet1 between old id and id description.

the formula in old id2 is =LEFT(cell location,3)... so it's essentially returning the same values in old id....

then i change my vlookup... it works when i did that!

i keep on having to do this everytime..

why is this the case??

the data types are the same so the issue is not that.


can anyone help? thanks!