Indicate a Blank Cell

Overview

Sometimes you want to filter an NL function based on the contents of another cell or the output of another NL function, where either of which could be a blank value.

The NL function does not allow you to use blank filters, and you will get a #VALUE error message if you fill in a FilterField parameter and leave the corresponding filter blank.

When you are using a cell reference to filter on a blank value, you just need to change the syntax a little.

Any time you are going to reference a cell that has special characters or could be blank, simply put "@@" in front of the cell reference.

Example...

let's assume that we want to use the contents of cell D5 in our filter - but the contents of that cell could be blank.  Here's how:

=GL(,$C10,,Option!$D$9,,"@@"&$D$5,,,,,,Option!$D$14)

When D5 is blank, the function will use "@@", instead.  This value is interpreted by your datasource to mean "blank".