Days counting from date and stopping counting (issue)

[gorillawar]

Hello,

I am trying to create a new tracking sheet, and it focuses around this formula I can't seem to find out how to fix. The formula I'm working with is below:

=IF(C3="",TODAY()-A3,C3-A3)

My objective was to create a tracking formula so I could put a date into a cell when notification was received/sent (A3), then have the cell next to it start counting(B3, also where the formula is located). Once that issue was resolved, I would input a date in the other cell (C3), which would them override the “today()” function, and do the subtraction portion (Also stopping an endless number count). This would show how long it takes for responses to have quick overview of how many days it took to respond to each issue.

My current dilemma is that when cell A3 is blank, the formula cell displays a sample number 43313. I'm not sure why it wont just show a blank cell when there is no data to grab from. Is there a way to fix it so it wont show this? I have tried everything I can think of, but nothing works.

 

[mikeross]

Every date has a number value assigned to it in Excel. Today's (8/1/2018) value is "43313". Tomorrow will be 43314 and yesterday was 43312.

Before your formula you could add another if statement that looks if the cell is blank, like this:

=IF(ISBLANK(A3),"",IF(C3="",TODAY()-A3,C3-A3))

That will check if A3 is blank - if it is, then it will show nothing, but if it isn't then it will show your original formula


Hope that helps

 

[gorillawar]

This worked! you the best.