INDEX/MATCH - coming back blank

Question

Hello,

I have a sheet that is tracking savings/impacts of projects. Both sheets are using the same ROW ID. I created a helper column to take the system generated Row ID and return a number. I am getting nothing back. No errors, no data, nothing. Any thoughts?

=IFERROR(INDEX({Finance CSJ Tracker - Savings/Impact}, MATCH([Helper: ID]@row, {Finance CSJ Tracker Project ID}, 0)), "")

Paul Newcome · Answer

@LSW If you have leading zeros on some and not on others, those with leading zeros will be treated as text values, and those without will be treated as numerical values. This difference in data types within the column causes issues in a number of ways including this one.

Using the VALUE function turned all of them into numbers which means you now have a consistent data type throughout the column which allows the formula to work.

LSW · Answer

Wait I solved my own problem. Changed the helper column to  =VALUE([Row ID]@row verus just = … still don't understand why this is necessary sometimes but not always.