How To Ignore Blank Cells for a Formula

Question

I'm tracking hours for my company and I need to see the updated hours daily. I have everything formatted how I want it, except I want two columns to show how many hours over and under each employees current hours are.

What I have right now is =(D3-C3)+(F3-E3)+(H3-G3)+(J3-I3)+(L3-K3)+(N3-M3)+(P3-O3)

But it is including all the empty cells (for days that haven't been worked yet) as a zero.

I want a formula that can allow me to ignore those blank cells until they have content.

I can't just use a SUMIF >0 function because I need to count the number of hours employees have MISSED (ie scheduled 12 hrs, actually worked 0).

Answer 1

Here's an alternate approach to @Tom's, though it works on similar principles. This one, however, relies on your ability to add a couple of 'HELPER' rows, above your current data.

I'm assuming that row 1 will alternate between saying "PROJECTED", and "ACTUAL". I'm assuming that row 2 will be dates for that week, in Date format. So A2 will be Jan 1 2015, B2 will be Feb 1 2015, C3 will be Feb 1 2015, or however often the time blocks go up. The key here is that the PROJECTED columns and the ACTUAL columns will each need the date in them.

The formula to check the variance between that row's PROJECTED amount and that row's ACTUAL amount, only for dates prior to today, is (for row 3 and copied down, and assuming the data goes to column Z):

=SUMIFS(A3:Z3,$A$1:$Z$1,"PROJECTED",$A$2:$Z$2,"<"&TODAY())-SUMIFS(A3:Z3,$A$1:$Z$1,"ACTUAL",$A$2:$Z$2,"<"&TODAY())

This checks to see the value of PROJECTED columns for that row, where the date is less than today, and subtracts the value of ACTUAL columns for that row, where the date is less than today.

If you are looking to compare with something other than TODAY(), you can set up a cell to be your 'comparison point'. Manual type the breakoff period you are concerned with into that cell, and replace "&TODAY()" with, say, "&AA1" [assuming your breakoff point is entered in cell AA1].

Answer 2

As it stands, either a very long series of IF's and OR's or an array formula:-

=SUM(IF(OR(D3="",C3=""),0,D3-C3),IF(OR(F3="",E3=""),0,F3-E3),IF(OR(H3="",G3=""),0,H3-G3),IF(OR(J3="",I3=""),0,J3-I3),IF(OR(L3="",K3=""),0,L3-K3),IF(OR(N3="",M3=""),0,N3-M3),IF(OR(P3="",O3=""),0,P3-O3))

=SUM(D3:P3*ISEVEN(COLUMN(D3:P3))*(C3:O3<>""))-SUM(C3:O3*ISODD(COLUMN((C3:O3))*(D3:P3<>"")))

The second one must be entered with Ctrl Shift Enter

Note that it could easily be broken by insertion/deletion of columns.