VLOOKUP example provided in documentation does not appear to be correct?

Glenn Butler

Smartsheet VLOOKUP example does not seem to be correct. In the example VLOOKUP Function | Smartsheet Learning Center, unless I'm missing something, the first formula example "IF([In Stock?]1 = 1 (true), VLOOKUP(“T-Shirt”, [Clothing Item]1:Status3, 4))" defines the table starting "Clothing" column row 1 to "Status" row 3. It says to return the fourth column over which would return "In Stock?". Not "Green". Which is what is provided as the result. Am I reading something wrong? I'm seeing similar issues with other examples also.  

Mark Cronk

Good catch.

Mark

Glenn Butler

@Mark Cronk thanks for confirmation. I'm new to Vlookup on SS but not excel. I've been searching around for examples, which seems to be pretty light, and this one really got me scratching my head. Good to know my rendering of documentation is in the correct direction.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Glenn Butler

Thanks for pointing out this inconsistency! I've let our Help Content team know and we'll update the article so it doesn't create confusion in the future.

In the meantime, is there a formula the Community can help you with? If you're looking to create a VLOOKUP formula, may I suggest instead using a combination of INDEX(MATCH?

The reason being this will only look at the two relevant columns to find your data, versus needing to reference an entire range of a sheet.

An INDEX(MATCH works like this:

=INDEX({Column with value to return}, MATCH([Value to match]@row, {Column with value to match in the other sheet}, 0))

An Index Match with multiple criteria would be an INDEX(COLLECT (see this other Community post).

Cheers,

Genevieve