Working with lookup functions

Lookup functions are some of the most widely used functions in Excel. Generally, the intention is to fetch a value from one dataset (the source) to another dataset (the target).

Let's first understand what a proper Excel dataset is.

The first row of a dataset is the header row that contains the names of all the fields. As you can see in the illustration in Figure 3.1, the header row of the sales report includes the following fields: Date, Product, Product Code, Salesperson, and so on. Each column in the dataset represents a field, and each row represents a record. Finally, no entire row or entire column in the dataset must be empty, and there must be at least one empty row below the dataset, at least one empty column to the right, one empty row above (unless the dataset begins from row 1), and one empty column to the left (unless the dataset begins from column A) of the dataset.

For example, say you have two datasets: a sales report that...