I came across the project manager video in my YouTube feed about a week ago and thought it was the perfect launching point for my maintenance tracker that I'm building for my unit, especially given that each vehicle or howitzer could be classified as "projects" and faults could be classified as "tasks" underneath each "project". However, the main problem I'm running into is the functionality of what different faults are classified as. Each "project" has about 70 "tasks" that could either be classified as deadline or slash faults, and each "task" has on average 4 or 5 different criteria for what classifies as "deadline" or "slash fault". Which, I was using nestled IF functions, often IF(AND) along with IF(AND(OR)) functions. And I ran into the problem that due to the way I formatted the function, I ran out of usable characters. I was wondering if there's a way to cut down on the nestled IF functions (and thus eliminate the character limit) by way of pivot tables. It's useful to note I'm using Excel 365, but that I'm trying to create it compatible with a slightly older version of Excel. Any help I could get would be greatly appreciated. Obviously, I'm trying to format my overall spreadsheet to look similar to the "Project Manager Dashboard", but I'm trying to set up the data for uses with my own purposes.
Hi James,
Welcome to our forum!
Maybe you could use Power Query to do a merge with another table that contains all the scenarios/criteria. When you merge tables you can specify the columns that need to be matched. In other words, you can do a lookup from your data table to the table containing your criteria and return the Fault Stat.
I hope that points you in the right direction. Come back if you get stuck.
Mynda
I'm not too familiar with Power Query. I'm almost entirely self taught from YouTube videos and messing around with Excel on my own. Do you have any resources you'd recommend for using Power Query?
Additionally, is there a way to use VLOOKUP in conjunction with an IF function or a NOT function. Such that, if it queries the table but doesn't find the match that it's looking for (ie it might meet the piece type and TM item number specifications but not the fault description, thus returning a different value). Also, would the VLOOKUP with Power Query be able to distinguish between differing types of what amounts to the same value (ie each TM item fault number begins with 1, but would it be able to distinguish between which 1 belongs to Howitzers and which one belongs to say LMTVs?)
Hi James,
The best thing you can do is create a mock up with a sample of your 70 classifications and some dummy data you want to classify, and some examples of the data already classified so we can see the rules.
In regards to distinguishing between different types beginning with certain numbers, you'd need to extract that beginning number to another column and use that in your lookup criteria.
Please upload a file so we can help you further.
Mynda
