MS Excel help - I should know this.

[TPMB12]

I need to summarize data quickly, excel should do this. For some reason I can't work it out. Can you help?

I've got a whole load of data but the only data off interest is on two columns. I need to look up all the cells with the same every in one column then take an average of all the data that corresponds to the same row number but in the other column.

For example, one column is people's names and the other is a percentage relating to that person. I need to take an average of all those percentage for each individual person. Joe Blogs has 4 entries, Jane Smith might not have any, etc. Etc. I need to summarize.

Actually just realized it's more complex than that. I need to do that for each date which is listed in a third column. So all entries for Joe on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc get averaged out and recorded in one row for that person with the days forming the columns. Ultimately this is used to graph out the data as part of a simple dashboard for people to review. Each time period it'll be zeroed and new data populated in the cells (and saved as a new file obviously).

I'm guessing vlookup but I can't seem to get it working as I'd imagine it should.

Is there a way of working this out? I used to find excel instinctive but current versions don't seem to be as obvious to me.

Am I being stupid here? Is it just a pivot table type of report?

[De Sisti]

This may be what you're after:
* click the small box in top left hand of page (to highlight all the page)
* click one of the tabs  at top of page entitled data
* this should put a drop-down arrow which shows every item in each column
* you should then be able to filter on on what you see in each column; eg, tick the box to see everything in the
   column, or just those items you're interested in.
* while holding the control key, click the letter at the top of each column you do not want to see, right click the mouse.
* choose the option hide towards the bottom of the choices.

[telstarbox]

Can you put a few rows of example data up?

[Manotea]

This should cover it

[matthew]

Pivot tables sound like your friend. Ensure your data is in a table where each column has a heading e.g. person, Day of the Week, Percentage.

Select the whole data and then insert a pivot table, select insert on new sheet.

You will get a field selection form you want Names in rows, DotW in Columns and Percentage in data.

The right click the percentage and under the options you can change if the data presented is the average, sum, product ... Your data will be presented in a table with a row for each name, a column for each day of the week and the average of each entry for person A on day Z in the AZ cell. You will also be able to add the average for all days per person and all people per day as subtotals.

Or Manotea's average if will work,  but you will have to have the list of names and days to formulate the grid of data.

[Si S]

<deletes post about pivot tables and limitations of averageif>

Wot e said ^^