Alternative to vlookup approx match

Question

Row 1, Sheet 1: 
['0553400710', '0553439406']

Then i have an array like this in sheet 2,

Column 1     Column 2
Ahmed        0553400710
Someone      0542929292
Tina         0524449494
and so on

I used vlookup approx match but it gives wrong results by giving many matches.

I wanted to return 'Ahmed' since it matches partially with row 1, sheet 1

The Vloopup (approx match) seem not to work in this case. What are the alternatives?

In simple words, i cant find a way to match 0553400710 in one cell with ['0553400710', '0553439406'] in another

One common trend in that ['0553400710', '0553439406'] has a common trend. all the numbers are in common ' ' , ' ' between numbers and has [ ] between them. The other number is an input from me

Bryan Davies Bryan Davies · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-30T10:22:40

do you want an approx match or an exact match? approx match works only if the data is sorted and it will get the closest (sorta)

Do you want the closest match?

Alternative to vlookup approx match

1 Answers