Excel Formula: Find Earliest Date and Latest Date for Each Group
In this tutorial, it provides formulas to find the earliest date and latest date for each group in Excel.
If you want to follow along with this tutorial, please download the example spreadsheet.
Generic formula:
Find the earliest date of each group
| {MIN(IF(group_rng=group,startD_rng))} |
Find the latest date of each group
| {MAX(IF(group_rng=group,startD_rng))} |
Syntaxt and Arguments
| Group_rng: the cell range that contains all group names. |
| Group: the group whose earliest date and latest date you want to find out. |
| StartD_rng: the cell range that contains all starting dates of the groups. |
Return Value
The formulas return a date as a numeric value. Since the date is stored as number in Excel, to directly view the date, you can format the numeric value in a date format as you need after using the formula.
How this formula works
Here is a table, column B3:B8 contains department names, column C3:C8 contains the different project names in the departments, column D3:D8 is the start dates of each project, and the end dates of each group are in column E3:E8. For finding the earliest starting date and latest ending date from each department (A and B), please use below formula:
Find the earliest date
| =MIN(IF($B$3:$B$8=B11,$D$3:$D$8)) |
Press Shift + Ctrl + Enter keys to get the correct array result.
Then drag the auto fill handle down to cells which need this formula.
Then keep the formula cells selected, press Ctrl +1 to display the Format Cells dialog, then under Number tab, click at Date in the Category list, then select one type of date from right Type section.
Click OK, now the results are displayed as dates.
Find the latest date for each department
| =MAX(IF($B$3:$B$8=B11,$E$3:$E$8)) |
Press Shift + Ctrl + Enter keys, drag fill handle to apply the array formula to other cells as need, and format the cells as dates.
Explanation
IF function: tests for a specific condition.
In the array formula {IF($B$3:$B$9=B11,$D$3:$D$8)}, it returns
{43597;FALSE;43952;43802;FALSE;FALSE;FALSE}
MIN function: to find the minimum value in a range or an array.
={MIN (IF($B$3:$B$8=B11,$D$3:$D$8))}
={MIN(43597;FALSE;43952;43802;FALSE;FALSE)}
=43597
MAX function: to find the largest value in a range or an array.
={MAX(IF($B$3:$B$8=B11,$E$3:$E$8))}
={MAX(44158;FALSE;44654;44013;FALSE;FALSE)}
=44684
Remark
If you are using Excel 2019 or Excel 365, you can use the MINIFS and MAXIFS functions to quickly find the earliest and latest dates of each group.
Generic Formula
Find earliest date for group
| MINIFS(startD_rng,group_rng,group) |
Find latest date for group
| MAXIFS(startD_rng,group_rng,group) |
Use the below formulas with above example:
| =MINIFS($D$3:$D$8,$B$3:$B$8,B11) |
| =MAXIFS($E$3:$E$8,$B$3:$B$8,B11) |
Relative Formulas
- Count days of month
This tutorial provides formulas to count the total days of the month based on given date. - Count days until expiration date
To count the days between today and each expiration date in Excel by formula - Display current date or time
This tutorial provides formulas to show the current date or time in Excel. - Create weekly date range
In this tutorial, it provides a formula to quickly get the weekly date range in Excel.
Relative Functions
- Excel WEEKNUM Function
Returns the week number of the given date in a year - Excel WORKDAY Function
Adds workdays to the given start date and returns a workday - Excel MONTH Function
The MONTH is used to get the month as integer number (1 to 12) from date - Excel DAY Function
DAY function gets the day as a number (1 to 31) from a date - Excel NOW Function
Get the current time and date
The Best Office Productivity Tools
Kutools for Excel - Helps You To Stand Out From Crowd
Kutools for Excel Boasts Over 300 Features, Ensuring That What You Need is Just A Click Away...
Office Tab - Enable Tabbed Reading and Editing in Microsoft Office (include Excel)
- One second to switch between dozens of open documents!
- Reduce hundreds of mouse clicks for you every day, say goodbye to mouse hand.
- Increases your productivity by 50% when viewing and editing multiple documents.
- Brings Efficient Tabs to Office (include Excel), Just Like Chrome, Edge and Firefox.
