Excel Pivot Table or VLOOKUP

Question

Students have an ID, Name, and English Level in one spreadsheet. They have an ID and achievement on a standardized test on another spreadsheet.

I need to match the ID's and put the English level into the standardized test results.

I was under a deadline and actually accomplished this by importing into mysql and running update queries BUT I think there has to be an easier way with Excel or Open Office.

Any links to a good tutorial? I've watched videos and read about pivot tables but I'm not having any luck yet.

Answer 1

Ok, here's a bunch of links:

• Productivity Portfolio

• Ozgrid

• Microsoft

• About.com

• Lacher

• Free Training Tutorial

Answer 2

If you managed to get your head around querys then vlookups should be easy for you.

Sheet1
ID, Name, English Level

Sheet2
Id, Achievement

Add a new column at the end of sheet 2 - english level with =vlookup(A2,Sheet1!A:C,3,false)

To explain, "A2" this says I want to match on the value in A2 (this will change for each row. Then this says "Sheet1!A:C", the data I'm interested in is in Sheet 1, columns A:C. The "3" says you want the value in the third column in sheet1 A:C. And finally the "False" says, the data won't be in order - if you sort it, and set this to be true you will get better performance results.