Excel for Windows (Desktop Application)
Welcome to the Excel for Windows (Desktop Application) feedback forum! This is the place for users to send us suggestions and ideas on how to improve. If you think you have found a bug, please send us feedback in-app instead! To do so, please click “File”, then “Feedback”, then “Send a Frown” in Excel. This way, we will get detailed information that will help us better diagnose the problem.
To help us build the best version of Excel ever, we have partnered with UserVoice, a third-party service, to create this site to hear your suggestions and ideas for the next version of Excel. Your use of the portal and your submission is subject to the UserVoice Terms of Service & Privacy Policy, including the license terms. Please do not send any novel or patentable ideas, copyrighted materials, samples or demos for which you do not want to grant a license to Microsoft.
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Make a simple safer version of VLOOKUP and INDEX MATCH
The majority of Excel users use VLOOKUP to get exact matches from a row or column, It would be good if they all used INDEX MATCH but it's more complex so how about this simpler version for the masses.
=GETMATCH(ReferenceToMatch, MatchColumn/Row, GetColumn/Row, Optional Value if no match)
If seen a few other references to updating VLOOKUPS and there are lots of opportunities, but it would be good to address the simple most widely used issue first.
730 votesThanks for the suggestion Wyn! Thanks also to all the contributors to this thread for the thoughtful discussion and debate.
Of the many lookup function requests, this is currently one of the highest ranking on UserVoice. Please keep the votes rolling in if you’d like to see this, it helps us prioritize new feature work.
JoeMcD [MS XL]
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VLOOKUP function for multiple criteria
There should be a *VLOOKUPS function (or you name it) alongside VLOOKUP to find data based on multiple criteria. I know there are workarounds like INDEX and MATCH but they are unnecessarily complicated considering COUNTIFS and SUMIFS functions do a neat job at counting and adding multiple criteria. And please make it so it works with unsorted data.
342 votesThanks for the feedback! We’re seeing a number of different posts about lookup functions – we’ll be taking a close look at this area and thinking it through. We’ll prioritize the asks according to votes along with other requests on the site. So I encourage people to keep voting if it’s something they really want to see the priority raised on.
Best,
John [MS XL] -
Workbook level calculation
We need the ability to calculate a single workbook when multiple workbooks are open.
When working with multiple large slow workbooks which are often not even linked together (think multiple versions of the same workbook or a large mostly static workbook being referenced by a smaller rapidly changing workbook) you want to make changes and recalculate without globally recalculating all open workbooks.
This should be implemented as
a) New calculation setting (persistent) - Calculate Active Workbook Only - works for Automatic and Manual F9, but Ctrl/Alt/F9 would full calculate all open workbooks regardless of the setting.
Automatic Calc in Active…182 votesThanks for the post Charles, and for the in person conversation at the latest MVP conference. We definitely understand the ask and will keep our eye on it – it looks like it’s moving up the vote charts pretty quickly. As always, keep upvoting the things you are about most.
Best,
John [MS XL] -
Two new =if's
Just like =IFERROR(), could we also get =IFBLANK() and =IFZERO(). I would use these on a regular basis, and it would cut in half the size of large formulas where I just want something specific to happen where the result is either blank or zero
176 votesThanks for the suggestion figboot. As always, we’ll prioritize this according to the number of votes it gets, so please be sure to vote it up if you want to see it done sooner.
Thanks
John [MS XL] -
Built-in RegEx / Regular Expressions Functions to Search, Extract, and Replace
I've constantly found myself installing and re-installing add-ins that add RegEx Functions to Excel. Everyone I introduce them too finds them extremely useful. There's over half a million results in google for the query ["excel" ("regular expression" OR "regex")].
403 votesThanks for the suggestion! We’re fans of Regex and its ability to parse text too.
If you’d like to see Regex support in Excel, please keep the votes rolling in.
- JoeMcD [MS XL]
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Auto resizing of formula bar
Give us an easily accessible option to have the formula bar resize automatically if a formula spans across multiple rows in the formula bar so the whole formula will be visible.
133 votesThanks for the suggestion. I think I’ve seen some related requests, I’ll look at merging them to make sure the votes properly reflect the ask. We’ll prioritize this into the execution pipe appropriately based on the number of votes.
Cheers,
John [MS XL] -
Adding a native interpolation function in Excel
Interpolation (even a simple linear interpolation) would be a great native function for Excel to have. Something like INTERPOLATE(KnownXRange,KnownYRange, NewX) would be fantastic for anyone who ever has to do this
The current workaround looks something like this:
=FORECAST(NewX,OFFSET(KnownY,MATCH(NewX,KnownX,1)-1,0,2), OFFSET(KnownX,MATCH(NewX,KnownX,1)-1,0,2))
56 votesThanks for the suggestion, and thanks for showing how you’re using the FORECAST as a workaround. We’ll consider this request along with all the other ideas here and prioritize it according to the votes – so please keep voting if you want to see the priority raised!
Best,
John [MS XL] -
VLookup and Inserting Columns: VLookup should increment the col_index_num when you insert a new column in the range.
When you insert a column and it affects the range referred to by a vlookup, the table range updates but the column index number does not. The column index number should increase with the table range so that the same column is pulled. I can't think of a scenario where inserting columns in a table but not updating the column index is a user's intended course of action.
38 votesThanks for the suggestion Alexander. We’ll be taking a look at how various lookup scenarios work and looking at improvements there. We’ll be sure to deeply consider anything that’s got a lot of votes, so please keep voting for the things you find most important.
Thanks,
John [MS XL] -
Integrate error handling/value on error for functions such as VLOOKUP
While functions like IFERROR and ISERROR exist, it complicates things to have to wrap each function in an error checker.
E.g.
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(C2,A1:B6,2,FALSE),"not found")
could become:
=VLOOKUP(C2,A1:B6,2,FALSE,"not found")38 votesWe’re always looking for ways to make formulas smaller and easier – thanks for the suggestion! We’ll prioritize this according to the number of votes, so keep voting if you want to see this get done sooner!
Thanks,
John [MS XL] -
Extend VLOOKUP() and HLOOKUP()
Extend the lookup functions so they can lookup left/up as well as right/down. That will save us having to build and maintain unintuitive formulae combining INDEX() and MATCH().
72 votesThanks for taking the time to post a suggestion Malcolm! We’ll be taking a look at lookup functions. There’s a number of votes on the site for them – I’m not going to merge all of them though because different posts are asking for slightly different things. Please keep voting for the ones you want to see most!
Cheers,
John [MS XL] -
A simple function to replace the IF(A1="","",EnterFormulaHere)
Everyone down to amateur excel users knows the quick fix for displaying no value in a cell if it's precedent is blank is the =IF(A1="","",EnterFormulaHere). Usually used when the end user hasn't yet entered information into input cells and Errors in cells are undesired.
This gets more complex when there are many precedent cells and requires this =IF(OR(A1="",B2="",C3=""),"",EnterFormulaHere) etc.
We need a function for this such as:
=IFBLANK(IfNotBlank,[CellsToCheck],[All/Any])So, =IFBLANK(A1*B2*C3) would only return the result of the formula if none of cells A1, B2 and C3 were blank.
Or, =IFBLANK(A1*B2*C3,(A1,B2,D7)) allows the user to select the specific cells to be…
19 votesInteresting suggestion Jon, thanks for posting it. There’s some other suggestions around blank/null, so we’ll be taking a look at the space in general, and making particularly sure that we consider related functions that get a lot of votes. As always, the more votes something gets the more chance that a specific request gets in the execution pipe sooner. So I just want to encourage folks to keep voting for the ideas they like best!
Cheers,
John [MS XL] -
Add scientific constants
Currently excel has Euler's number and pi, but it'd be great if it had functions with precise values for other commonly used constants like speed of light, electron charge, Plancks constant, Boltzmann constant, Avogadro's number etc.
10 votesThanks for the suggestion Rolands! I’d be curious to see, in comments, what other constants people are interested in. I’ll check back on this later, and of course the more votes it has the more likely it is to get into the product – so please keep the votes coming if you like the idea!
Best,
John [MS XL] -
Countif(search("string",array)=true)
Allow countif (and countifs) to count cells where I am searching an array for a string value. For example, if I have a table with dates in one column and names in another column, but I may have multiple names in a single cell, I want to be able to count the number of cells that have John listed even if that cell also has Jane as a value.
11 votesGood suggestion Omar, thanks for posting. We’ll prioritize this according to votes – so please keep voting for the ideas you like most!
Thanks,
John [MS XL] -
7 votes
Thanks for the suggestion. We’ll consider it along with all the other ideas here and prioritize it according to the votes – so please keep voting if you want to see the priority raised!
Best,
John [MS XL] -
Network functions, like ping() or nslookup()
Handy if you have a column of hostnames or IP addresses.
9 votesInteresting idea, thanks for the suggestion. I’d be interested to know if there are other functions in this area that people also want to see. I’ll check back soon to see how many votes this is getting, so if you like the idea be sure to vote for it.
Cheers,
John [MX XL] -
Cortana should learn excel syntax so that I don't have to
Cortana should learn excel syntax so that I don't have to. Pretty simple, for users that don't want to learn functions such as left/right, they should simply be able to say "Cortana, take the last 3digits off that column and put them in the next column" "Make me a pie chart with the colors red white and blue"
(2015-11-05 Dan [MS] - added to Formulas and Functions category)
8 votesThanks for the post. As always, we’ll be looking at ideas in priority order according to the number of votes things have. So please keep voting for things you want to see done sooner!
Thanks
John [MS XL] -
MODE function work for text
Could you make the MODE function work for text?
Currently you have to do a crazy index and lookup thing, which could all be made so much easier if mode worked for text. i.e., if you have MODE("a", "b", "c", "a") you would get "a".7 votesInteresting idea – thanks for the suggestion Tomiam8. We’ll consider this and prioritize by vote, so please keep voting if you want to see the priority raised!
Thanks,
John [MS XL]
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