outer join in MS Excel

Question

do you have an idea how to join two tables with the outer join ? Know to do this in SQL, but I need Excel now.

I have a list of all employees in one column I have a

Answer 1

This method does copy and pasting, filtering, and sorting to accomplish an outer join in Excel and good for just one offs. The idea is to use a VLOOKUP to find all matching records from the left to the right tables and right to the left tables. [Adding another record to table 2 to show outer join]

Table 1

Fernando
Hector
Vivian
Ivan

Table 2

Fernando, task A, 5 hours
Vivian, task B, 8 hours
Thomas, task A, 5 hours

Copy both tables into one table where table 1 will take up the first left columns and first rows and table 2 will take up the last right columns and last rows (The headers should be row 1 for both tables). Create a VLOOKUP function for the next two columns to find matching keys from the left to right tables and right to left tables.

Table 3

Name     Name     Task    Hours   Match 1                  Match 2
Fernando                          =VLOOKUP(A2,B:B,1,FALSE) =VLOOKUP(B2,A:A,1,FALSE)
Hector                            =VLOOKUP(A3,B:B,1,FALSE) =VLOOKUP(B3,A:A,1,FALSE)
Vivian                            =VLOOKUP(A4,B:B,1,FALSE) =VLOOKUP(B4,A:A,1,FALSE)
Ivan                              =VLOOKUP(A5,B:B,1,FALSE) =VLOOKUP(B5,A:A,1,FALSE)
         Fernando task A  5 hours =VLOOKUP(A6,B:B,1,FALSE) =VLOOKUP(B6,A:A,1,FALSE)
         Vivian   task B  8 hours =VLOOKUP(A7,B:B,1,FALSE) =VLOOKUP(B7,A:A,1,FALSE)
         Thomas   task B  8 hours =VLOOKUP(A8,B:B,1,FALSE) =VLOOKUP(B8,A:A,1,FALSE)

Table 3 Result

Name     Name     Task    Hours   Match 1  Match 2
Fernando                          Fernando N/A
Hector                            N/A      N/A
Vivian                            Vivian   N/A
Ivan                              N/A      N/A
         Fernando task A  5 hours N/A      Fernando
         Vivian   task B  8 hours N/A      Vivian
         Thomas   task B  8 hours N/A      N/A

NOTE: For large data sets, the next step will take a very long time because of the VLOOKUP calculation that happens. Copy and paste over columns for match 1 and match 2 columns as values so that VLOOKUP doesn't recalculate during filtering.

Filter on Match 1 and Match 2 to only see all N/A results. Copy the main data to another sheet with headers.

Name     Name     Task    Hours   Match 1  Match 2
Hector                            N/A      N/A
Ivan                              N/A      N/A
         Thomas   task B  8 hours N/A      N/A

Filter on Match 1 and Match 2 to not see N/A results. Sort on keys for both, so that when copy and pasting everything matches. Copy and paste Table 1 data into the new sheet below previously pasted data first. Then copy and paste Table 2 data to the right of the Table 1 data that was just pasted.

Name     Name     Task    Hours   Match 1  Match 2
Fernando                          Fernando N/A
Vivian                            Vivian   N/A
         Fernando task A  5 hours N/A      Fernando
         Vivian   task B  8 hours N/A      Vivian

The result is below and you can delete, sort, whatever to the outer joined data.

Name     Name     Task    Hours
Hector
Ivan
         Thomas   task B  8 hours
Fernando Fernando task A  5 hours
Vivian   Vivian   task B  8 hours