Eliminating Dupes with Pivot Table and VLookup

Alt-D-P will get you the pivot table popup to allow for multiple consolidation ranges.


Is there a reason you don't just use DataRibbon->Remove Duplicates?  Or, are you having to identify the duplicates?


Are you trying to consolidate the duplicates, or the two tables?

Here's a link on multiple consolidation ranges with pivot tables:
http://www.contextures.com/xlPivot08.html

Dave

Hi Dave,

This was a question posed to me by a recruiter.  Most of my experience is with Access.  I'm familiar with Excel but I've never come across this before, and chances are the recruiter herself doesn't know anything about Excel.  I've discovered some great stuff since I posed the question, such as:

Data-> Sort & Filter -> Advanced Filter -> Copy to Another Location -> Unique Records Only

I can use VLookup to identify duplicate values and a Pivot Table to list unique values in a list.

What 'DataRibbon' tab has the 'Remove Duplicates' command? I cant't find that great feature, but it certainly sounds useful, to say the least.

Thanks.

BTW, Dave...

The goal is to consolidate data and eliminate duplicates (potential client just had huge merger).

Also, thanks for the link.

Wow! Great one-step solution! Thanks!

1. hit Alt-D-P to pull up the Pivot Table dialog supporting multiple consolidation ranges.
2. select Multiple consolidation ranges from the Step 1 dialog (NEXT)
3. Select "I will create the page fields" in Step 2a (NEXT)
4. Select the first Range (DataSet 01), then hit Add in Step 2b.  Then select the second Range (DataSet 02), and hit Add.
5. For this example, create 1 page field, then click on your first dataset range, and name the page field "DataSet01", and do the same for the second, naming "Dataset02".
6. Finish creation of the pivot table

Now, to organize for duplicates:

1. put Page1 in the Report filter
2. put Value and Column in the Row Labels
3. put Row in the Values area, and change the aggregation to COUNT.

Attached is the workbook that does this, and you can filter (as I have) to sort descending by Count using the downarrow on Row Labels, then More Sort Options, Descending by Count of Row.

Now, you have a list of duplicates first.

The other way to find duplicates from one set to the other is using VLOOKUP (or you could use MATCH or COUNTIF).

See attached, as I've added these formulas Dataset 01.  Now, you try to find duplicates using these formulas from Dataset02.

Dave
Duplicate-Datasets.xlsx

You might need to be able to do this the "Old Fashioned" way (that feature doesn't exist in Excel 2003), and sometimes the recruiter won't want you to eliminate them, but to identify them.  The post, above, helps with that.

Cheers,

Dave