What I'm trying to do is use VLOOKUP to search through for an Alphanumeric serial number in a range of data in another sheet. However, it does not seem to be recognizing that there is a match when I know for a fact that there is and that they are formatted exactly the same.
The values I'm working with look like this: FTX1724R3W2
I've ran a =A1=B2 function and it returns TRUE. I've copied and pasted one to the other to make sure that the formatting is the same, yet it still returns a #N/A. Using MATCH returns a FALSE as well.
I'm not sure what's going on, do I need to specially format the Alphanumeric codes so that they are "searchable"?
Here is the VLOOKUP that I was using...
=VLOOKUP(L2498, Inventory_List!$A$1:$D$2176, 1, FALSE)
My final goal is that it finds it in the other sheet and returns the value in the first indexed column, which is the name of the inventory object.
VLOOKUP() searches the first column of the indicated range. For the function to be effective, have the serial number column be the leftmost column of your search range.
From Microsoft:
VLOOKUP(lookup_value,table_array,col_index_num,range_lookup)
Lookup_value The value to search in the first column of the table array. Lookup_value can be a value or a reference. If lookup_value is smaller than the smallest value in the first column of table_array, VLOOKUP returns the #N/A error value.
Table_array Two or more columns of data. Use a reference to a range or a range name. The values in the first column of table_array are the values searched by lookup_value. These values can be text, numbers, or logical values. Uppercase and lowercase text are equivalent.
Col_index_num The column number in table_array from which the matching value must be returned. A col_index_num of 1 returns the value in the first column in table_array; a col_index_num of 2 returns the value in the second column in table_array, and so on.