We value your feedback.
Take our survey and automatically be enter to win anyone of the following:
Yeti Cooler, Amazon eGift Card, and Movie eGift Card!
Solved
Denormalize Excel Data
Posted on 2012-12-30
I don't know that "denormalize" is technically the correct term, so to you database guys, I apologize up front, but it's the best I could come up with to describe my need.
I am being given the output of a relational database in Excel format, where there is a one-to-many relationship between "person name" and "position code". For each person, one row is output for each position held. The "key" is the name, which is the "one" side of the relationship.
I'm not bad with Excel, but this is beyond my pay grade: I want to have, for each name, a cell that has the concatenated set of positions to which that person is assigned. An example:
Input
I am being given the output of a relational database in Excel format, where there is a one-to-many relationship between "person name" and "position code". For each person, one row is output for each position held. The "key" is the name, which is the "one" side of the relationship.
I'm not bad with Excel, but this is beyond my pay grade: I want to have, for each name, a cell that has the concatenated set of positions to which that person is assigned. An example:
Input
Name | Position
John | AA
John | BB
Tom | AA
Harry | BB
Harry | CC
Harry | DD
Name | Positions
John | AA, BB
Tom | AA
Harry | BB, CC, DD
[X]
Welcome to Experts Exchange
Add your voice to the tech community where 5M+ people just like you are talking about what matters.
- Help others & share knowledge
- Earn cash & points
- Learn & ask questions
4-
4
3
12 Comments
Hello,
Excel does not provide that functionality out of the box. You would need a custom formula written with VBA.
The closest you can get with out of the box functionality is to build a pivot table as the attached.
cheers, teylyn
Pivot.xlsx
Excel does not provide that functionality out of the box. You would need a custom formula written with VBA.
The closest you can get with out of the box functionality is to build a pivot table as the attached.
cheers, teylyn
Pivot.xlsx
Yeah, I ran down the Pivot Table rabbit hole myself; I've seen some very fancy things done with VLOOKUP and am hoping someone clever can put something together, but if VBA is the only solution I'm going to have to go another route :-(
Thanks for the suggestion, though.
Thanks for the suggestion, though.
Active 1 day ago
Hi, propertytax.
A few questions, please...
(1) In your source example, all of the entries for an individual are grouped together. Is this true for the actual data?
(2) May we add a helper column (or two!) beside the source data?
(3) May we assume a maximum no. of entries?
(4) How does the source data get from the database to the spreadsheet which will contain the results?
Thanks,
Brian.
A few questions, please...
(1) In your source example, all of the entries for an individual are grouped together. Is this true for the actual data?
(2) May we add a helper column (or two!) beside the source data?
(3) May we assume a maximum no. of entries?
(4) How does the source data get from the database to the spreadsheet which will contain the results?
Thanks,
Brian.
1) The entries for each name are grouped by name; further, they are sorted by name ascending, which is the primary (and only) sort key
2) Yes, we're free to add any helper columns we would care to, the data is "branched" from the database and we can manipulate at will
3) We may assume a maximum of 4 positions per name
4) The data is delivered to me as an Excel spreadsheet; I have no direct access to the database itself.
I've been playing with ARRAY formulas but I am just so terrible at those, I haven't a clue where to start.
2) Yes, we're free to add any helper columns we would care to, the data is "branched" from the database and we can manipulate at will
3) We may assume a maximum of 4 positions per name
4) The data is delivered to me as an Excel spreadsheet; I have no direct access to the database itself.
I've been playing with ARRAY formulas but I am just so terrible at those, I haven't a clue where to start.
Hello,
please see attached a suggestion with helper columns that can be hidden.
Column E has the formula
=IF(ISERROR(MATCH($D2&E$1,
Column F has
=IF(COUNTA($E2:E2)>0,E2&",
Hide columns E to H. In column I use
=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(H2,
This can be expanded to as many positions as there are in the data.
You can use a pivot table to set up the initial grid of unique names in the rows and unique list of positions in the column headers. Then copy the unique names and use paste special > values to paste to a new table. Copy the unique position names and paste special > values across the top.
cheers, teylyn
NotPivot.xlsx
please see attached a suggestion with helper columns that can be hidden.
Column E has the formula
=IF(ISERROR(MATCH($D2&E$1,
Column F has
=IF(COUNTA($E2:E2)>0,E2&",
Hide columns E to H. In column I use
=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(H2,
This can be expanded to as many positions as there are in the data.
You can use a pivot table to set up the initial grid of unique names in the rows and unique list of positions in the column headers. Then copy the unique names and use paste special > values to paste to a new table. Copy the unique position names and paste special > values across the top.
cheers, teylyn
NotPivot.xlsx
Active 1 day ago
Thanks, propertytax.
Please see the attached. A few points...
(1) The formulas are in the yellow (and one red) cells. Copy them down for as many as rows as you have data in column A. You can overshoot (as I have in rows 28 to 31) without breaking anything.
(2) If you want to be fancy the formulas in columns F anf H:I only need to go down as many rows as the number of unique names (E2).
(3) The red cell is highlighted because, apologies, its formula is different from the other cells in that column.
(4) If you may have more than 5,000 entries in column A then the formulas in column F need to be changed.
Regards,
Brian.
Denormalize-No-VBA.xlsx
Please see the attached. A few points...
(1) The formulas are in the yellow (and one red) cells. Copy them down for as many as rows as you have data in column A. You can overshoot (as I have in rows 28 to 31) without breaking anything.
(2) If you want to be fancy the formulas in columns F anf H:I only need to go down as many rows as the number of unique names (E2).
(3) The red cell is highlighted because, apologies, its formula is different from the other cells in that column.
(4) If you may have more than 5,000 entries in column A then the formulas in column F need to be changed.
Regards,
Brian.
Denormalize-No-VBA.xlsx
Sorry, both - came down with something or other, keeping me on my back for now. I'll get back to this shortly, though. I appreciate the responses.
Hello, thanks for closing the question, but can you please explain the B grade? If you don't assign an A grade, you should explain what aspect of the answers you are not happy with, so experts can improve their suggestions.
If you are not happy with the way that Excel works, then that does not mean the question gets a B, though. Experts are not responsible for the way Excel works.
If you are not happy with the way that Excel works, then that does not mean the question gets a B, though. Experts are not responsible for the way Excel works.
Featured Post
Can Concerto Cloud Services help you focus on evolving your application offerings, while delivering the best cloud experience to your customers? From DevOps to revenue models and customer support, the answer is yes!
Learn how Concerto can help you.
Question has a verified solution.
If you are experiencing a similar issue, please ask a related question
When you see single cell contains number and text, and you have to get any date out of it seems like cracking our heads.
After seeing numerous questions for Dynamic Data Validation I notice that most have used Visual Basic to solve the problem. This suggestion is purely formula based and can be used in multiple rows.
This Micro Tutorial will demonstrate the scrolling table in Microsoft Excel using the INDEX function.
This Micro Tutorial will demonstrate how to use a scrolling table in Microsoft Excel using the INDEX function.
Suggested Courses
Course of the Month8 days, 18 hours left to enroll
604 members asked questions and received personalized solutions in the past 7 days.
Join the community of 500,000 technology professionals and ask your questions.