Excel 2010: if( , , "") not treated the same as blank for pivot table group by date

Question

I'm trying to group by date in an Excel 2010 pivot table.

The column with dates (i.e., the one want to group by), should be the latest date of 2 other columns if neither is null, or blank. i.e., with a formula like:

=IF(AND(A4 <> "", B4 <> ""), MAX(A4,B4), "")

Normally, this ""in the IF() formula acts the same as an empty cell. In this case, it is preventing me from grouping by date in the Pivot Table. If I filter the date column by (Blanks), then clear the contents of all those cells, then the pivot table does group by date ok. i.e., "" is not being treated the same as an empty cell.

Answer 1

i usually use 0 (number, i.e.: 0.1.1900 date) instead of "" (empty string) and this number format: [=0]"";d.m.yyyy

• since you use , as a list separator, the number format will probably look like '[=0]"",m/d/yyyy' for you, but i don't know for sure
• in the pivot table, you will find these "blank" values under the year 1900 - i've never had to use actual dates from 1900, so there was no confusion

Answer 2

For those who are looking for a solution for this, please check out my solution at the following post and see if it works for you.
Excel Pivot Table recognizing blank cells ("") in column as text not numbers