Difficult vlookup formula using cell value and wildcards

Question

I am trying to pull data in Excel using vlookup, but I need to use a cell value and a wildcard. I have tried all of the syntax I can think of with no luck. The current formula is:

=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(A640,OpenIPB!A:B,1,FALSE)), 0, VLOOKUP(A640,OpenIPB!A:B,2,FALSE))

The problem is the value in A640 is "102-2028" and the value in OpenIBP that I need it to match with is "102-2028 - RA# 131009-43" Can anyone help me with this? I'm sure there is a cleaner way to go about this, but I'm stuck. Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes, you can use a wildcard in VLOOKUP, just change lookup value to A640&"*"

You can simplify formula with IFERROR if you are using Excel 2007 or later, i.e.

=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(A640&"*",OpenIPB!A:B,2,FALSE),0)