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Question

Fuzzy search in google sheets

  • 26 September 2022
  • 7 replies
  • 1787 views
R

Hi everyone, 

 

Is it possible to do a Fuzzy search in Google Sheets? 
Example: I want to find all rows containing “@companya.com” and extract them etc. 

Can’t find any documentation on this anywhere. 

This post has been closed for comments. Please create a new post if you need help or have a question about this topic.

7 replies

Jillian
Userlevel 4
Badge +6

Hi @Ratkiff! I’m not sure if you’re asking about fuzzy search in general for Google Sheets or in conjunction with Zapier, so I’ll answer both!

In general, Google Sheets doesn’t naturally include a true fuzzy search which is where you find strong similarities between two fields with a percentage of likelihood that they’re a match. For example, “Jillian” and “Jilian” would have a high percentage of matching. Fortunately there are Google Sheet add ons you can plug in to do a true fuzzy match. I’ve used a few and they work well.

However, the example you’re giving wouldn’t require a fuzzy match. It would be a substring search. A quick search for “google sheets search contains partial text” brought up a ton of solutions.

Now… on the Zapier side of things - you’ll want to check out Filters and use the “contains” functionality. You can see more about it here: https://zapier.com/help/create/customize/filter-and-path-rules-in-zaps

Hope this helps!!

R

Hi Jillian, 

Thanks for explaining, but for me it only matches on exact when doing tests in Zapier. 

The tools that you are talking about, could you please name some examples? 

 

Sure the filters are good to check if it contains “the word”. But i want to extract all complete rows of information if it contains a certain word etc. 

MohSwellam
Userlevel 7
Badge +8

Hi @Ratkiff 

 

The question is are you always searching for this ? I mean, are you trying to always do a fuzzy search on the email field? Im guessing you are because otherwise it will be a very complicated zap. 

 

In such case, why not create a formula column in Google Sheet where you extract this part of the email then use Google Sheet - Find with Line Item Support to bring all the items that match this? 

Founder of GeekyAir.com
Liz_Roberts
Userlevel 7
Badge +8

Great suggestion @MohSwellam !

@Ratkiff were you able to try the formula column/Action that @MohSwellam suggests above? 

Let us know if it worked out or if you’re running into any issues!

R

Thanks for your suggestion @MohSwellam! 
I will look in to the Line item support that you suggest. 

 

To tell you about the complicated Zap i am trying to build: 

  1. Outlook - look ahead 14 days for meetings
  2. Utility - Get E-mail adress everyone that is participating and separate so i only get the domain adress
  3. Sheets: Lookup the domain adress against two columns, where one is the domain adress of the external participants - The other row is for project names associated (this elimates all rows that are not tied to the project itself) 
  4. Clickup - Put the row information in to a Clickup together with the calendar information regarding time and notes. 
MohSwellam
Userlevel 7
Badge +8

Hi @Ratkiff 

 

This still is doable in the same way I mentioned, you just have to have this formula field parse the data from both columns into one in Google Sheet. This way you will use 1 Find step instead of 2. 

Founder of GeekyAir.com
Danvers
Userlevel 7
Badge +12

Hi @Ratkiff!

Were you able to give Moh’s solution a try? Let us know if you need any help with it!

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