Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Indirect References to a DSUM Parameter.

Indirect References to a DSUM Parameter

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 16, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


Octavio has a worksheet that has a lot of named ranges in it. In one section of his worksheet he has a list of those names. In a formula that uses the DSUM function, Octavio wants to use different cells in this list to refer to the actual "database" that is used by the function. For instance, if "February11" is a named range and cell F12 contains the text "February11," Octavio wants to specify F12 as the first parameter in the DSUM function and have it get the actual range. When he tries the following, where Criteria is a named range for the summation criteria, he gets an error:

=DSUM(F12, "Profit", Criteria)

The solution to this is to use, instead of the actual cell address, the results of the INDIRECT function. This function grabs whatever is in the cell it references and uses that content as a "pointer" to another cell or range. Thus, if cell F12 contains the text "February11", the following two formulas provide the exact same result:

=DSUM(INDIRECT(F12), "Profit", Criteria)
=DSUM(February11, "Profit", Criteria)

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (5664) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Indirect References to a DSUM Parameter.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Increasing the Size of the Draft Font

When looking at your document in Draft view, you may want Word to use a larger font than what it normally does. Here's ...

Discover More

Transposing Table Contents

When you transpose information, it is essentially "rotated" in a direction. If you transpose the information in a table, ...

Discover More

Replacing with a Subscript

The Find and Replace capabilities of Word are quite powerful. One type of replacing may not seem possible at ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Returning the MODE of a Range

The MODE function is used to determine the most frequently recurring value in a range. This tip explains how to use the ...

Discover More

Calculating the Day of the Year

Need to know what day of the year a certain date is? You can figure it out easily using the formulas in this tip.

Discover More

Finding Unique Rows Based on Two Columns

Using the UNIQUE function you can derive unique values from a range of cells. By expanding the range of cells accessed by ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 7 - 7?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.