Windows 10: Announcing XLOOKUP for Excel in Office 365

Brink · Aug 28, 2019

I am excited to announce XLOOKUP; the successor to iconic VLOOKUP function. Before I describe XLOOKUP, I want to take a moment to reflect on VLOOKUP's incredible history and impact on spreadsheeting.

VLOOKUP has been with Excel from the beginning; it was included in Excel 1 for Macintosh released in 1985. For 34 years, VLOOKUP has been the first lookup function learned by Excel users and our 3rd most used function (after SUM and AVERAGE). In fact, it’s so fundamental to spreadsheeting that most users can recall the sense of achievement they felt when they first mastered VLOOKUP, myself included.

Introducing XLOOKUP

XLOOKUP is named for its ability to look both vertically and horizontally (yes it replaces HLOOKUP too!). In its simplest form, XLOOKUP needs just 3 arguments to perform the most common exact lookup (one fewer than VLOOKUP). Let’s consider its signature in the simplest form:

XLOOKUP(lookup_value,lookup_array,return_array)

lookup_value: What you are looking for

lookup_array: Where to find it

return_array: What to return

Let's see it in action:

Advanced XLOOKUP variations

To perform advanced lookups, you can use XLOOKUP’s optional 4th and 5th mode arguments: match_mode and search_mode.

XLOOKUP(lookup_value,lookup_array,return_array,[match_mode],[search_mode])

match_mode allows you to set the type of match you’d like to perform. The options are:

Use zero to perform an exact match, this is the default.
Use 1 or -1 to allow a match against the nearest smaller (or larger) item when there is no exact match.
Use 2 to do a simple wildcard match where ? means match any character and * means match any run of characters.

search_mode lets you configure the type and direction of search. The options are:

Use 1 or -1 to search from first-to-last or last-to-first.
Use 2 or -2 to do a binary search on sorted data. This is included for expert users only.

Why release a new lookup function?

While VLOOKUP was widely used, it has several well-known limitations which XLOOKUP overcomes:

Defaults to an “approximate” match: Most often users want an exact match, but this is not VLOOKUP’s default behavior. To perform an exact match, you need to set the 4th argument to FALSE. If you forget (which is easy to do), you’ll probably get the wrong answer.

Does not support column insertions/deletions: VLOOKUP’s 3rd argument is the column number you’d like returned. Because this is a number, if you insert or delete a column you need to increment or decrement the column number inside the VLOOKUP.

Cannot look to the left: VLOOKUP always searches the 1st column, then returns a column to the right. There is no way to return values from a column to the left, forcing users to rearrange their data.

Cannot search from the back: If you want to find the last occurrence, you need to reverse the order of your data.

Cannot search for next larger item: When performing an “approximate” match, only the next smaller item can be returned and only if correctly sorted.

References more cells than necessary: VLOOKUP 2nd argument, table_array, needs to stretch from the lookup column to the results column. As a result, it typically references more cells than it truly depends on. This could result in unnecessary calculations, reducing the performance of your spreadsheets.

What’s the future for VLOOKUP & HLOOKUP?

VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP will both continue to be supported by Excel. That said, we strongly recommend using XLOOKUP in favor of VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP because XLOOKUP is simpler to use and less prone to error.

XMATCH

In addition to XLOOKUP we are also launching XMATCH which has a similar signature to XLOOKUP but returns the index of the matching item. XMATCH is both easier to use and more capable than its predecessor MATCH.

XMATCH(lookup_value,lookup_array,[match_mode],[search_mode])

Learn More

You can learn more about XLOOKUP and XMATCH from these resources:

XLOOKUP help

XMATCH help

Availability Notes

XLOOKUP and XMATCH are available for users signed up for the Office 365 Insiders Program starting today and will continue rolling out to Insiders over the next few weeks. Gradual roll outs allow us to gather feedback and ensure feature quality.

To stay connected to Excel and its community, read the Excel blog posts and send us ideas and suggestions via UserVoice. You can also follow Excel on Facebook and Twitter.

Joe McDaid (@jjmcdaid)

Program Manager, Excel
Click to expand...

Source: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/...UP/ba-p/811376

:)

Carlos Tin · Aug 28, 2019

Office 365 activation error after big Win 10 update

We appreciate your response, Keith. We suggest that you update Office 365 and see if it'll make a difference. You can simply do it by opening any Office 365 applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). Here are the steps on how to do so:

Open Office app, then click on File.

Look for Account, then click on Update.

Once done, restart your computer.

We're looking forward to your feedback.

R PUSPALAK · Aug 28, 2019

Unable to copy cells in excel (office 365) on WP8

I am unable to copy the cells in excel (office 365) on WP8, please suggests.

Douglas Clelland · Aug 28, 2019

Cortana & Office 365 Integration

We are trying to integrate Cortana with our Office 365 subscription, but it never works. Here are the steps we have done:

Turned on Cortona in the Office 365 Admin portal

We are using Windows 10 1703 – connected Office 365 service to Cortana

Did the same on windows 10 mobile with no luck, Cortana says its connected to Office 365, but sees no data and we are getting zero errors

We went rough office 365 support first and tried all fo their suggestions, they kicked us over to Windows support which is currently closed.

We are on v1703 with all updates in place, it does not work on Windows 10 desktop or mobile

any ideas? I can give you all steps 365 support had us run through if that will be helpful

Thank you

Doug

Windows 10: Announcing XLOOKUP for Excel in Office 365

Announcing XLOOKUP for Excel in Office 365

Announcing XLOOKUP for Excel in Office 365

Announcing XLOOKUP for Excel in Office 365

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