Hey everyone! I’m stuck on a tricky spreadsheet problem. I’ve got a huge list of rooms from different stores. Each room has a location number, phase order, and area. I need to:
- Add up the total area for each location number
- When there are duplicate rooms, only use the one with the highest phase order
- If a room is split into two parts, combine their areas
I’ve tried searching online but can’t figure it out. Any tips or tricks would be super helpful! Here’s a quick example of what I’m dealing with:
Location | Room | Phase | Area
---------|--------|-------|-----
1001 | Office | 1 | 100
1001 | Office | 2 | 120
1001 | Storage| 1 | 50
1001 | Storage| 1 | 60
1002 | Kitchen| 1 | 80
Thanks in advance for any help you can give!
yo, have u tried pivot tables? they’re pretty sick for this kinda stuff. u can group by location, then room, and use custom calcs to grab the highest phase n sum areas. might take sum fiddling but should work. good luck!
I’ve dealt with similar data wrangling challenges before. One approach that’s worked well for me is using a combination of array formulas and helper columns. First, create a unique identifier by concatenating the location and room. Then, use MAXIFS to get the highest phase for each unique room. For split rooms, a SUMIFS can aggregate the areas. Finally, wrap it all in a SUMPRODUCT to get your totals per location. It’s a bit complex, but it handles all your requirements in one go. Just be aware that with large datasets, this method can be computationally intensive. If you’re dealing with thousands of rows, you might want to consider alternatives like Power Query or even a proper database solution for better performance.
I’ve encountered similar challenges with complex data filtering in spreadsheets before. Here’s an approach that might help:
For your first requirement, you can use a SUMIF function to add up the total area for each location number. This is straightforward and should work well.
The trickier part is handling duplicate rooms and combining split rooms. I’d suggest creating a helper column that concatenates the location and room name. Then, use a combination of MAXIFS and SUMIFS functions to get the highest phase order and combine areas for split rooms.
Finally, you can use a PivotTable to summarize the results. This method has worked well for me in the past with large datasets.
Keep in mind that depending on the size of your dataset, these calculations might slow down your spreadsheet. If that happens, you might want to consider using a database tool like Access or even a programming language like Python for more efficient processing.
Hope this helps point you in the right direction! Let me know if you need any clarification on these steps.