The
logical function IFS is available if you are an Office 365 subscriber and have
the latest version of Office installed on your PC or you are using Excel
Online. It is also available in Excel Mobile and in Excel for Android phones
and tablets.
The IF
function is one of the most commonly used logical functions in Excel, and using
IF inside IF (nested IF functions) has been a common practice in Excel, but it
can be challenging or confusing at times.
Here is
an example of cluttered/ nested Ifs:
The new IFS
function help specify a series of conditions. IFS gives you an alternative to
using a series of nested IF functions, when you have more than one condition
that you want to test to find a corresponding result. The IFS function checks
whether one or more conditions are met and returns a value that corresponds to
the first TRUE condition.
The
advantage of using the new IFS functions is that you can specify a series of
conditions in a single function. Each condition is followed by the result that
will be used if the condition is true—making it very straightforward to create
and read the formula afterward.
Here is
the syntax:
IFS(logical_test1,
value_if_true1, [logical_test2, value_if_true2], [logical_test3,
value_if_true3],…)
Because Excel
functions are limited to 254 parameters, you can use up to 127 pairs of
condition and result arguments in this IFS function.
For
example, let’s say you want to get the grade letter for a given score on a
test. Using the IFS function, it might be something like this:
=IFS(C1>=90,
“A”, C1>=80, “B”, C1>= 70, “C”, C1>=60, “D”, C1<60, “Fail”)
This can
be read as, if the grade in C1 is greater than or equal to 90, it’s an A.
Otherwise, if it’s greater than or equal to 80, it’s a B. Otherwise, if it’s
greater than or equal to 70, it’s a C and so on. It’s pretty easy to write it
this way and it’s also straightforward to read and understand what’s going on.
Note:
The
SWITCH function is also a powerful logical function and can handle multiple
conditions. What makes it different is that rather than specifying a series
of conditional statements, you specify an expression and a series of values and
results. The values are compared to the expression, and when the first
exact match is found, the corresponding result is applied to the cell. You can
also specify a “default” result that will be returned if none of the values are
an exact match for the expression. The advantage of the SWITCH function is that
you can avoid repeating the expression over and over, which sometimes happens
in nested IF formulas.
In the
example below, the first part of the formula extracts the size code (i.e. XS, M
and G) from the middle of the item in column B. It’s rather long, so it’s nice
that SWITCH only needs it to be written once and it can be compared to a list
of values.
The
example below can be explained as:
Extract the size code from the item in column
B. If it equals “XS”, the result is “Extra Small.” Otherwise, if it equals “S”,
the result is “Small” and so on. If there’s no match, the result is “Not
Specified.”
Again, because Excel functions are limited to 254 arguments, you can use up to
126 pairs of value and result arguments in this SWITCH function.