How can I count cells in a row but only count adjacent cells once in Excel

Question

Hi I have an spreadsheet with the following structure:-

I need help to figure out a formula or VBA function, to calculate the Activity Block Count column.

This is the count of non blank, contiguous cells in the date columns. For example Project 5 has 4 weeks of activity but only 3 continuous blocks of activity.

Any idea warmly welcomed ;-). I'm working at the weekend and it's driving me insane!

Thanks

Jonathan

Answer 1

Just walk through the cells in the range, noting changes in whether the cell(s) are populated or not.

Function countActivityBlock(rng As Range) As Long

    Dim r As Range, bNum As Boolean

    If Not IsEmpty(rng.Cells(1)) Then
        bNum = True
        countActivityBlock = 1
    End If

    For Each r In rng
        If Not IsEmpty(r) And Not bNum Then
            bNum = Not bNum
            countActivityBlock = countActivityBlock + 1
        ElseIf IsEmpty(r) And bNum Then
            bNum = Not bNum
        End If
    Next r

End Function

---

_{SpecialCells(xlCelltypeConstants, xlNumbers) does not work within a UDF.}

Answer 2

The formula way of doing this is using FREQUENCY as follows

=SUM(--(FREQUENCY(IF(D2:P2<>"",COLUMN(D2:P2)),IF(D2:P2="",COLUMN(D2:P2)))>0))

Must be entered as an array formula using Ctrl Shift Enter

See This and This