My problem, generally stated:
I need a formula that returns all the values in a specific column for which multiple criteria in other columns of the respective row apply.
My problem, specifically stated:
I would like a formula that returns all the values in Column A for which Column C is "John", Column E is "Apples", Column G is "Earth" and both Columns H and I are empty. See here for a simplified illustration of my problem with dummy data. The correct formula, dragged down, would output a list with the values "1", "4", and "14". If you'd like to try out some stuff in the linked spreadsheet, feel free to do so in a copy of the original sheet so others can see my original data/formulas.
What I've tried so far:
Simply filtering was not an option because the data is on a separate sheet within the same spreadsheet. I also knew VLOOKUP and INDEX/MATCH were not going to do what I wanted - VLOOKUP doesn't handle multiple criteria, and while the MATCH part of INDEX/MATCH can be turned into an array to specify multiple criteria, it only returns the first value for which all conditions are true, while I need all of them.
I then tried the following formula (Formula 1 in the linked spreadsheet):
=IFERROR(INDEX($A$2:$I, SMALL(IF(COUNTIF($K$2, $C$2:$C)*COUNTIF($K$3, $E$2:$E)*COUNTIF($K$4, $G$2:$G), ROW($A$2:$I)-MIN(ROW($A$2:$I))+1), ROW(A1)), COLUMN(A1)),"")
It worked like a charm, until I wanted to include the condition that both columns H and I should be empty. I tried this, but for some reason I don't understand it didn't work (Formula 2 in the linked spreadsheet):
=IFERROR(INDEX($A$2:$I, SMALL(IF(COUNTIF($K$2, $C$2:$C)*COUNTIF($K$3, $E$2:$E)*COUNTIF($K$4, $G$2:$G)*COUNTIF($K$5, $H$2:$H)*COUNTIF($K$6, $I$2:$I), ROW($A$2:$I)-MIN(ROW($A$2:$I))+1), ROW(A1)), COLUMN(A1)),"")
Then I tried to nest my first formula into an IF/VLOOKUP (Formula 3 in the linked spreadsheet):
=IFERROR(IF(VLOOKUP(INDEX($A$2:$I, SMALL(IF(COUNTIF($K$2, $C$2:$C)*COUNTIF($K$3, $E$2:$E)*COUNTIF($K$4, $G$2:$G), ROW($A$2:$I)-MIN(ROW($A$2:$I))+1), ROW(A1)), COLUMN(A1)),$A$2:I,8,FALSE)<>"","",INDEX($A$2:$I, SMALL(IF(COUNTIF($K$2, $C$2:$C)*COUNTIF($K$3, $E$2:$E)*COUNTIF($K$4, $G$2:$G), ROW($A$2:$I)-MIN(ROW($A$2:$I))+1), ROW(A1)), COLUMN(A1))),"")
This worked if I only asked for column H to be empty, but a) it is very unwieldy, b) it gives you blanks in the list it returns, which I do not want, and c) I could not get it to work for the condition that both columns H and I need to be empty using OR.
That's where I'm stuck, and I haven't come up with a good solution. Knowing this forum, I'm sure someone has an elegant solution I was not smart enough to find :)
