Three Dimensional Lookup Using INDEX/MATCH

Question

This was taken and improved slightly from Question that has since been deleted

For those who can see deleted posts, it was taken from here: https://

Answer 1

My answer attempts the general case with only one caveat:

That a letter is single character text, and a name is more than 1 character. Otherwise i feel there is no difference logically between letters and names, and it is then impossible to really do...

RE-EDIT for better function construction:

{=INDEX($A$1:$D$17, MATCH($H$3,$A1:$A17, 0)+MATCH($H$4, INDEX($A1:$A17, MATCH($H$3,$A1:$A17, 0)):INDEX($A:$A, SMALL(IFERROR(MATCH($H$3,$A1:$A17, 0)+POWER(SQRT(IF(LEN($A$1:$A$17)>1, ROW($A$1:$A$17), 0)-MATCH($H$3,$A$1:$A$17, 0)), 2)-1, ROWS($A$1:$A$17)), 2)), 0)-1, MATCH($H$5, $A$1:$D$1, 0))}

This uses an array formula along column A, and checks if the length is > 1 and throws the row nums into an array, with letters given a 0.

Then match row of unique name(e.g. George) is subtracted from each.

We then use a min(of all other name rows, with the last data row as the final default - SMALL function with 2 parameter) to find the next name row(or last data row if there is no following name).

Rest is standard index/match etc.

It will correctly return #N/A if there is no such letter under the chosen name...

My dataset is A1:A17, and the formula could use A:A instead each time, but the array calc inside the IF needs the A1:A17 for speed.

EDIT for better function construction:

If we wanted to avoid editing the formula when the data length changes, then we could let full column references of A:A go through the entire construction(and lose speed/efficiency) with the last data row in colA calculated via ROWS(A:A):

Re-edit:

{=INDEX($A:$D, MATCH($H$3,$A:$A, 0)+MATCH($H$4, INDEX($A:$A, MATCH($H$3,$A:$A, 0)):INDEX($A:$A, SMALL(IFERROR(MATCH($H$3,$A:$A, 0)+POWER(SQRT(IF(LEN($A:$A)>1, ROW($A:$A), 0)-MATCH($H$3,$A:$A, 0)), 2)-1, ROWS($A:$A)), 2)), 0)-1, MATCH($H$5,1:1, 0))}

It really depends on the setup...

Edit again for version which takes blanks as separators for names

If you want to use blanks as the separator for names, where no blanks are in the data results, but blanks appear in columns B to D where there is a name, then a tiny change in the above formulae will result in this:

=INDEX($A$1:$D$17, MATCH($H$3,$A$1:$A$17, 0)+MATCH($H$4, INDEX($A:$A, MATCH($H$3,$A:$A, 0)):INDEX($A:$A, SMALL(IFERROR(MATCH($H$3,$A:$A, 0)+POWER(SQRT(IF($B$1:$B$17="", ROW($A$1:$A$17), 0)-MATCH($H$3,$A$1:$A$17, 0)), 2)-1, ROWS($A$1:$A$17)), 2)), 0)-1, MATCH($H$5, $A$1:$D$1, 0))

This means that the names and letters do not have to be any specified length, but just one proviso is that blanks appear in the row with the name.

A small amendment to the condition to find the end range to search for the letter by replacing this: SQRT(IF(LEN($A$1:$A$17)>1, with this:

SQRT(IF($B$1:$B$17="",