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How can I return a value in one column from another sheet based on two inconsistent string criteria?

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edited 02/29/24 in Formulas and Functions

Hi, any help with this will be hugely appreciated.

On my master sheet I have a "Task Name" column, an "Audience" column and a "Description" column I want to populate with this formula.

On the source sheet I have a "Task Name" column, an "Audience" column and the "Description" column I want the data from.

Unfortunately, the text strings in "Task Name" and "Audience" will not always exactly match across the two sheets but the strings will definitely be there in some form, e.g. "US users" in the source sheet will be "US" in the master sheet.

I have tried VLOOKUP with multiple criteria but due to the slightly different strings it didn't work. Is there a way I can nest functions within the VLOOKUP to get the data from the "Description" column?

Another problem with this US example is that the word Russia also contains US.

I want it to be a column formula also, as editing the formula for each cell isn't possible due to the size of the sheet.

Please let me know if you need any other information. Thank you

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