VLOOKUP on a multi-select column

Dean Arvan

Hello,

Say I have a multi select column with 4 possible choices (North, South, East, West). If North and South are selected, is it possible to write a VLOOKUP to pull the first selection, and then write a second VLOOKUP to pull the second selection? In other words, is it possible to parse multi-select columns?

Thank you.

Paul Newcome

Do you want to parse the selections into their own cells?

Dean Arvan

Not necessarily since I intend to use each selection in subsequent formulas, but if I need to parse them into their own cells as an intermediate step I am not opposed to doing so.

Paul Newcome

It would certainly be easier to manage if you parse it out first.

You can modify THIS SOLUTION to do so. You would use the formula in the orange cell and the JOIN column would be replaced by your Multi-Select column, and you would replace the "/" in the formulas with CHAR(10) which is the function for line breaks (the delimiter in multi-selects).

Once you parse out the selections, you can use cell references in your VLOOKUP's.

Genevieve P.

Hey @Paul Newcome

This post was flagged as it looks like the "This Solution" link no longer goes to a published sheet. Do you have a different sheet with the same solution? Or perhaps another post?

Paul Newcome

@Genevieve P. There have been a few updates to various parsing solutions, so I no longer have that sheet.

My personal favorite (I can't remember who first posted it here) uses a SUBSTITUTE function, but there are a number of different versions based on specific needs. If the person who flagged it is able to provide details surrounding their structure, I'd be happy to help figure out which one works best for them.