#INVALID OPERATION when dividing

Joshua Peacock

I'm trying to do a count of how many staff have uploaded a particular document. I have who has uploaded the document and how many staff in total, and I want to display that as a percentage on the sheet. Whenever I try to divide # of Staff Uploaded by Total Staff I get #INVALID OPERATION. I've tried it both in formula and just pluging in the numbers manually but it keeps happening. Here's what I was trying to use:

=([Staff Uploaded]10 / [Total Staff]1)

And then format the result as a percentage.

Is that correct?

L_123

sounds like a data type issue. can you post an image of your sheet and the formulas you use to count for the 2 values you are dividing?

Joshua Peacock

The formula I'm using for the others are:

To get total staff:

=COUNT([Staff Name]1:[Staff Name]63)

 

and to count how many have uploaded:

=COUNTIF([Uploaded Document]1:[Uploaded Document]63, 1) + ""

 

Now the column with the COUNTIF is a checkbox since it is just a yes or no, but I tried using the divide formula in a text column and that didn't work either.

 

 

Andrée Starå

Hi Joshua,

You're getting the error because the uploaded document result is formatted as text and not a number.

Remove the +"" and it should work.

=COUNTIF([Uploaded Document]1:[Uploaded Document]63, 1) + ""

Did it work?

Have a fantastic day!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant @ Get Done Consulting

Joshua Peacock

Ah ok, the reason I formatted it as a text was because when I don't use "" the Uploaded Document cell then becomes #BOOLEAN EXPECTED. Is there a way to get around this?

Andrée Starå

This will probably help!

#BOOLEAN EXPECTED

Cause

The formula is in a specific type of column (Date, Number, Symbol) and the returned value is of a different type.

Resolution

Either move the formula to a different column, or convert the result to the appropriate type. Formula results may be converted to text values by adding an empty string. For example =TODAY() + "" will allow you to enter today's date into a text column.

Let me know if you need help!

Best,

Andrée

Paul Newcome

Because you are converting to text to get around the BOOLEN EXPECTED error, you will need to convert it back into a usable number for the formula. Try something like this...

 

=VALUE([Staff Uploaded]10) / [Total Staff]1

 

Using the VALUE function will convert the text string that represents a number into an actual number that can be used in formulas.