Count how many items exist and use it in a formula

Hey!
I’m struggling to do something that is quite easy with Excel.
I have a column (A) with many items, and each item has a creator (not a unique one, one creator can make many items).
I have a mirrored column (B), that shows a list of all the creators associated with all items that are in A.
for example, if Dan created 3 items out of 6 that are in column A, he will appear on column B 3 times.
I want to do something simple - count how many time a specific creator (like Dan) exists in column B, and them assign a value with a formula for payment (for royalties).
I have only a handful of creators, so I can create a column for each one, and the do the calculations separately.

Is something like that even possible? Can I identify, count and formulate items from a mirrored column?

Thank you!

Hi
I have a similar use-case.
I have 4 boards for 4 different project managers.
In each board I have 6 columns of material types (batteries, inverters, etc.); these columns are dropdowns, as there are cases where I need more than one type of a material.
In another column I have the number of units of each particular material.
I am trying to figure out a way to do a count of units per material type so I can better manage the inventory.
Dashboards won’t help, as I will have to do formula calculations…
If anyone has any thoughts, would love to hear them :slightly_smiling_face:
Thanks,
Ian

Hi Brain,

not sure if you are still searching for a solution (since you posted this nearly 2 years ago). But I just wanted to let you know, that our extension Spreadsheet Gorilla supports these kinds of cross-board calculations.

Here is a short demonstration video:

– Simon