Excel DMIN Function

Microsoft Excel DMIN Function

Basic Description

The Excel Dmin function finds the minimum value in a field (column) in a database for selected records only. The records to be included in the calculation are defined by a set of one or more user-specified criteria.

The syntax of the function is :

DMIN( database, field, criteria )

where the arguments are shown in the table below:

database	-	A range of cells containing the database. The top row of the database should specify the field names.
field	-	The field (column) within the database, that you want the minimum of. This can either be a field number, or can be the field name (ie. the header in the top row of the database) encased in quotes (eg. "Area", "Quarter", etc)
criteria	-	A range of cells that contain the criteria, to specify which records should be included in the calculation. The range can include one or more criteria, which are presented as a field name in one cell and the condition for that field in the cell below. eg. Quarter Area >1 North

Wildcards

You can also use the following wildcards in text-related criteria:

?    -    matches any single character
*    -    matches any sequence of characters

if you do actually want to find the ? or * character, type the ~ symbol before this character in your search.

eg. the condition "A*e" will match all cells containing a text string beginning with "A" and ending in "e".

The criteria supplied beneath each field heading can be either:

	-	a numeric value (including an integer, decimal, date, time, or logical value) (eg. 10, 01/01/2011, FALSE)
or
	-	a text string (eg. "text", "Sunday")
or
	-	an expression (eg. ">8", "<>0")

Note that the Excel database functions are not case sensitive. So, for example, the criteria ="North" will be satisfied by cells containing the text "North" or "north".

Excel Dmin Function Examples

	A	B	C	D	E
1	Name	Gender	Age	Subject	Score
2	Amy	Female	8	Math	63%
3	Amy	Female	8	English	78%
4	Amy	Female	8	Science	39%
5	Bill	Male	8	Math	55%
6	Bill	Male	8	English	71%
7	Bill	Male	8	Science	51%
8	Sue	Female	9	Math	39%
9	Sue	Female	9	English	52%
10	Sue	Female	9	Science	48%
11	Tom	Male	9	Math	78%
12	Tom	Male	9	English	69%
13	Tom	Male	9	Science	65%

The following examples are based on the simple database on the right, which stores the examination marks scored by four children in three different subjects.

Example 1

If, from the example database, we wanted to find the lowest score in Science, from students aged over 8, we could use the Dmin function as shown below.

In the example, the criteria are specified in cells G1 - H2 and the Dmin formula is shown in cell G3:

	G	H
1	Subject	Age
2	Science	>8
3	=DMIN( A1:E13, "Score", G1:H2 )

The above Dmin function calculates the minimum value in cells E10 & E13, and therefore returns the value 48%

Note that, in the above function, instead of typing in "Score" for the field argument, we could have simply used the number 5 (to denote the 5th column of the database).

Example 2

In the example below, the Dmin function is used to find the minimum Math examination score for a male child.

Again, the criteria are specified in cells G1 - H2 and the Dmin formula is shown in cell G3.

	F	G
1	Subject	Gender
2	Math	Male
3	=DMIN( A1:E13, "Sales", G1:H2 )

The above Dmin function finds the minimum of the values in cells E5 and E11 and so returns the value 55%