Microsoft Excel 2016 has several useful features and services, which are overlooked by the users. Nevertheless, if you keep frequently accessing the same table for data, have a look at VLOOKUP. VLOOKUP, which stands for “vertical lookup,” uses vertically aligned tables to rapidly identify data linked with a given value.

In Microsoft Excel, coordinating a large volume of data is a time-consuming task. When you’re about to compare data from various spreadsheets, that issue might become considerably worse and even more time-consuming. The VLOOKUP tool in Microsoft Excel is a lot easier to use than you would believe. Furthermore, it is quite strong, and you should certainly include it in your inventory of analytic tools in Excel.
Once you remember the name of a product and really want to instantly ascertain its value, simply type the name of the product into Excel, and VLOOKUP will do the rest. The VLOOKUP function examines your data for a certain value, and once it finds it, it may locate — and show — any other information that’s connected with that value.
Setting up VLOOKUP might appear overwhelming to a new Excel user, but it isn’t as complicated as it seems. Wherever you locate your data, it must be listed vertically when you look it up.
-  Select the cell where the VLOOKUP formula should be executed according to you. At the top of the screen, click on Formulas.
- On the Ribbon, select Lookup & Reference. At the bottom of the drop-down menu, click on VLOOKUP.
- Choose the cell where you’ll input the value whose detail or data you’re looking for. Â
- In the table array box, specify the data you intend VLOOKUP to consider for its search.
- Â In the col_index_num box, specify the column number that VLOOKUP will be using to find the appropriate data.
- VLOOKUP requires you to utilize the column’s numerical value rather than its letter value, which might be a little confusing.Â
- Enter FALSE (exact match) or TRUE (approximate match) in the range_lookup box to specify if you want an exact match. At the bottom of the popup window, click OK.
- Enter the value for which you’re looking for information.Â
Here’s an example of a VLOOKUP function for your convenience:
VLOOKUP(lookup_value , table_array , col_index_num , range_lookup)
VLOOKUP can be used to not only find individual values, but also to merge two spreadsheets or combine excel files into one. If one spreadsheet contains a vertical list of names and another spreadsheet has an unstructured list of those names and their contact information, for example, you may use VLOOKUP to get those contact details in the order they appear in the first spreadsheet.
To gain a comprehensive view of prospect generation, marketers must evaluate data from a several sources (and more). Microsoft Excel, notably the VLOOKUP function, is the ideal tool for doing this accurately and at a massive scale.