Excel's XLOOKUP Function (Completed)

Microsoft announced the new XLOOKUP function for Office 365 in August 2019. As is typical for Office 365 features, this function will be pushed out to users in waves. In this presentation you’ll get an overview of the new XLOOKUP function and see how it compares to both VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP and INDEX/MATCH, as well as the similarities that XLOOKUP has with the obsolete LOOKUP function in Excel.

David demonstrates every technique at least twice: first, on a PowerPoint slide with numbered steps, and second, in the Office 365 version of Excel. David draws your attention to any differences in the older versions of Excel (2019, 2016, 2013, and earlier) during the presentation as well as in his detailed handouts. David also provides an Excel workbook that includes most of the examples he uses during the webcast.

Office 365 is a subscription-based product that provides new-feature updates as often as monthly. Conversely, the perpetual licensed versions of Excel have feature sets that don’t change. Perpetual licensed versions have year numbers, such as Excel 2019, Excel 2016, and so on.

Who Should Attend
Practitioners interested in seeing the capabilities of the new XLOOKUP worksheet function in Office 365.

Topics Covered

• Determining if you have the subscription-based Office 365 version of Excel or a perpetually licensed version
• Reviewing the LOOKUP function and its limitations
• Improving the integrity of spreadsheets with Excel's VLOOKUP function
• Using the HLOOKUP function to look across rows instead of down columns
• Contrasting INDEX/MATCH to VLOOKUP
• Introducing the XLOOKUP worksheet function
• Using XLOOKUP to find the last match
• Using XLOOKUP to find lookups to the LEFT (instead of only to the right with VLOOKUP)
• Contrast how XLOOKUP defaults to an exact match instead of an approximate match like VLOOKUP
• Return a cell range, instead of a single value, which means you can return multiple values
• Understand wildcard support in XLOOKUP versus VLOOKUP
• Find approximate matches without sorting
• Contrast the MATCH function to the new XMATCH function
• Learn about the Microsoft Excel Insider program that can help speed up access to forthcoming new features in Office 365

Learning Objectives

• Identify the purpose of Excel's XLOOKUP function
• Describe the purpose of the column_index_num argument within VLOOKUP
• Identify the number of criteria pairs that you can specify in the MAXIFS function
• Describe what the MATCH function returns when the lookup_value is found

Level
Basic

Instructional Method
Group: Internet-based

NASBA Field of Study
Computer Software & Applications (2 hours)

Program Prerequisites
None

Advance Preparation
None