The VLookup function in Google Sheets allows you to combine data from two sheets into one sheet as long as both sheets contain a common search key.
ChatGPT explains it like we're 10: "Imagine you have a big box of crayons with lots of different colors. Each crayon has a name like "Sunny Yellow" or "Ocean Blue." You want to find a specific color, say "Sunny Yellow," and you want to know which number crayon it is in the box.
Google Sheets' VLOOKUP function is like a magic tool that helps you find your "Sunny Yellow" crayon in a big list. You tell it the name of the crayon you're looking for, and it goes down the list (which is like the rows in your crayon box) until it finds "Sunny Yellow." Then, it looks across to the number you want to know (like which number crayon it is) and tells you.
For example, if "Sunny Yellow" is the 5th crayon in the list, VLOOKUP will find "Sunny Yellow" and then tell you "5." It's a super quick way to find information in a big list without having to read every single item yourself!"
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Open your Google Sheet containing the data you already have.
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In this example, we want to add the color of the fruit to our report.
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Download a new report that contains the *search key*, which is a unique identifier for a record ("ID Number" in this example) **and** the new data we want to add ("Color" in this example).
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Click the "New Sheet" icon to add another Sheet.
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Click the down arrow next to the sheet name
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Click "Rename"
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Type a more meaningful name for the sheet and press [[enter]]
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Paste the data containing the *search key* (ID number in this example) and the new data we want to add (Color in this example).
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Click back to the original sheet.
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Click into the first row of the column you want to add the new data to (Color in this example) and name it accordingly.
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In the second row, type "[[=vloo]]" then click "VLOOKUP"
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Search_key: select the ID number in row 2
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Type "," to switch to the range selection.
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Switch to the second sheet that contains the data we want to add.
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Highlight the columns which contain the search key (ID Number) and new data (color).
In this example, we want to highlight columns A through C.
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Type "," to switch to the *index* selection.
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The *index* is the column within the highlighted range that contains the new data we want to add. In this example, "Color" is in column C, so we type "3".
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Type "," to switch to the *\[is sorted\]* selection.
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Type "false)" for the *is sorted* option to only return exact matches. Then press [[return]].
