Hi - Dave here.
Happy Friday!
By default, lookup functions in Excel return the
first match.
This works fine in many cases, but there are many situations where you might need to get the
last match, for example, the last order by a customer, the last contact date, the last exchange rate, the last update, etc.
In the worksheet below, the goal is to look up the latest order for a given person by Name. In other words, we want the last match by name. In the current version of Excel, a good solution is XLOOKUP as shown below:
[
Download the workbook and read the full explanation]
The XLOOKUP solution above works well. Another more flexible approach is to use the FILTER function with the TAKE function. In older versions of Excel, the easiest approach is to use a formula based on the LOOKUP function. All three approaches are explained at the link above.
Excel formulas
We maintain a list of over 500 working formulas
here.
If you need more structure, we also offer
video training.
Have a great weekend!
Dave
