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Excel COUNTA Practice Question: Using the attendance table, how many students attended on at least one day?…

By Rinkesh Shah, founder of Cellgrids.

The question

Using the attendance table, how many students attended on at least one day? Put it in E2.

The data

ABCDE
1StudentDay 1Day 2Result
2AnilPP?
3BinaP
4Chetan
5DevPP
6EshaP
7FarahP

The yellow cell is where your answer goes.

Show answer

Answer in E2: 5

How it works

Explanation: The plus sign works like OR: a row counts when Day 1 is filled or Day 2 is filled.
Syntax: =SUMPRODUCT(--(((B2:B7<>"")+(C2:C7<>""))>0))
Only Chetan was absent both days, so 5 students.

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COUNTA syntax

=COUNTA(value1, [value2], ...)

Counts how many cells in a range are not empty. COUNTA is used in data analysis work to summarize or test patterns across a data set. Full COUNTA guide.

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