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About Aidan Heritage
Expertise
I have provided first hand support since `95 for Microsoft Office majoring in Word and Excel - support for all versions from 2 onwards

Experience
My background is in the insurance industry and call centre areas, but have been called upon to provide many varied solutions.

Education/Credentials
I'm educated to UK A level standard, but as I left school some 30 years ago that is rather irrelevent - university of life has provided more of a background!

 
   

You are here:  Experts > Computing/Technology > Microsoft Software > Excel > Trying to get a head count..

Excel - Trying to get a head count..


Expert: Aidan Heritage - 3/10/2008

Question
I need help coming up with a formula that will return in a third column either a 1 or a 0 based on name and date criteria within two other columns.   

Specifically, I am trying to come up with an employee Head Count per bill date.  My data sheet includes a WEBillDate column, and an EmpName column.  However, our week ending bill dates are based on 2 work weeks, so an employee often appears twice in the same Week End Bill Date.  I need only count the employee once per Bill Date for our billing head count.  

So for a simplified example, the columns in my data spreadsheet would look like so:  

WEBillDate      EmpName      HeadCount
01-06-08      Jane Doe      1
01-06-08      Jane Doe      0
01-06-08      Jimmy Doe      1
01-20-08      Jane Doe      1
01-20-08      Jimmy Doe      1
01-20-08      Jimmy Doe      0

Ultimately, I intend to have Excel automatically subtotal (within a pivot table) the ‘headcount’ column per WEBillDate.  But for every Week End Bill Date there are nearly a thousand rows and I don’t wish to manually enter the information.  There must be a better way?  Possibly not even using the 1,0 argument, but something that would just count and filter simultaneously?

Any help GREATLY appreciated!!

- Alicia

Answer
I'm sure I'm missing something here, but wouldn't the pivot table be the way to go - this would group on names and bill dates, so you would automatically get the unique counts you need?  If I've misunderstood, please let me know - and if it helps to email me (eg with sample files) you can get me at aidan.heritage@virgin.net

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