Today’s Tip: IF Rule in Excel
Are you ever in a situation where you need to check that data is the same? Do you ever need to figure out if criteria was met (e.g. passed or failed) based on a simple variable? The IF Rule in excel can provide you an easier way to complete both of those functions.
In excel, the IF rule can be used in a couple of ways. I will teach you the basics of the two ways I most commonly use this rule. For my example, I will use a list of “student results”. For this example we will assume a pass mark is 50, and the only results are “Pass” or “Fail”.
Step 1: Open your list and, if required, copy and paste it into Excel.
Step 2: Select the cell you wish your information to land in. Press the “function” button and search for the IF rule.
Note: This will come up under Most Recently Used once you have used it, but for the first time you will need to search for it.
Step 3: Set the parameters of the data you’re wishing to test. For example, does every mark below 50 result in a fail and above 50 a pass? If so, you would set your test as “Is this data greater than 50?” or “*cell*>50″. Then enter the values for if the condition is true (e.g. if the mark is over 50 it’s a pass), and false (e.g. under 50 it is a fail).
The below is an example of the same thing, however I’m testing if the student number of these two sets of data matches.
Step 4: Click on the bottom right hand corner of the cell containing the formula and double click to auto-fill the rest of the data.
Step 5: Done!
Often in addition to using this formula, I use conditional formatting, which I will go into another day.
