Excel VBA Multiple Loops with Variables within the Loops - vba

Question

I've been stuck on this for a while, I could really use some help. I have this sub that searches for a column with the heading "Account" within five worksheets (B,E,L,I,T). When it finds a match, it then does a vlookup to bring the values of that entire column into another sheet in the spread (MasterTab). It works great. But I need to make it a loop so that it can do this process with an array of 550 variables (these are other column headings).
I am very new to loops and understand basic examples but this one seems complex because
I (think I) need to do a loop within a loop, because I have to loop for every mf_x_TEXT variable (the string for my match function), and also every mf_x variable (the match function itself). And since the code itself is a loop, that's three loops.
The mf_x variables rely on the mf_x_TEXT variables to work, so I don't really know how to set it up so that the loop correctly places the right TEXT variable into the right mf_x match function.
Here's my sub that works, without any attempts at getting what I'm talking about to work. If I show you my attempts at doing the loops it will just make things even more confusing. The mf_Account and mf_Account_TEXT is one example of the two sets of 550+ variables.
Sub GetInfoAltVersion()
'
Dim wsMaster As Worksheet: Set wsMaster = Workbooks("LBImportMacroTemplate.xlsm").Worksheets("MasterTab")
Dim vWSs As Variant: vWSs = Array("B", "E", "L", "I", "T")
'
Dim v As Long
Dim Mrange As Range
Dim Vrange As Range
'
With Workbooks("LBImportMacroTemplate.xlsm")
Set Mrange = Nothing
Set Vrange = Nothing
With ActiveSheet
lastrow = .Cells(.Rows.Count, "A").End(xlUp).Row
MsgBox lastrow
End With
'
Dim mf_Account_TEXT As String: mf_Account_TEXT = "Account"
'ETC, THERE ARE MANY MORE VARIABLES JUST LIKE THIS, BUT WITH DIFFERENT STRINGS
'
'THIS IS THE PART THAT I NEED TO LOOP FOR EACH VARIABLE
For v = LBound(vWSs) To UBound(vWSs)
If CBool(Application.CountIf(.Sheets(vWSs(v)).Range("A2:ZA2"), mf_Account_TEXT)) Then
Set Mrange = .Sheets(vWSs(v)).Range("A2:ZA2")
Set Vrange = .Sheets(vWSs(v)).Range("A:ZA")
mf_Account = Application.Match(mf_Account_TEXT, Mrange, 0)
'
For i = 2 To lastrow
wsMaster.Cells(i, 2) = Application.VLookup(wsMaster.Cells(i, 1), Vrange, mf_Account, 0)
Next i
Exit For
End If
Next v
Set Mrange = Nothing
Set Vrange = Nothing
'
End With
End Sub
One thing that could help is if I could put the application.Match function inside the vlookup function without having to make it a variable, because that would eliminate one of the needed loops. But I couldn't get the vlookup to work this way. The only way I was able to do it was do declare the match function as a variable, and then put the variable in the index_col_num section of the vlookup.
I know a programmer wouldn't write this manually 550 times, so there must be a way that is beyond my current understanding. Please help if you can, it is driving me nuts.

Answer 1

This will get the "variable" names from the Master Sheet. Put them all in row 1 starting in column 2. It is assumed that the value to look up in the other sheets is in the first column in both the Master Sheet and the other sheets.
If the lookup value and the column are in multiple sheets, then this will overwrite the value with the sheet listed later in your array. For instance, if lookup value "12345" and column Name "Account" are in both worksheet "B" and worksheet "T", then the value in worksheet "T" will be the one that shows up in your data. If you need a value from a different worksheet, then reorder the array to put the most important sheet last or the code will need to be modified.
Note that this is likely not the most efficient way to do this, but it should work.
Sub GetInfoAltVersion()
Dim xlWb As Workbook
Dim wsMaster As Worksheet
Dim vWSs As Variant: vWSs = Array("B", "E", "L", "I", "T")
Dim v As Long
Dim Mrange As Range
Dim Vrange As Range
Dim colName As String
Dim lastCol As Integer
Dim LastRow As Long
Dim AccountCol As Integer
Dim CurrSheet As Worksheet
Set xlWb = Workbooks("LBImportMacroTemplate.xlsm")
Set wsMaster = xlWb.Worksheets("MasterTab")
LastRow = wsMaster.Cells(wsMaster.Rows.Count, "A").End(xlUp).Row
MsgBox LastRow
lastCol = wsMaster.Cells(1, wsMaster.Columns.Count).End(xlToLeft).Column
MsgBox lastCol
For j = 2 To lastCol
colName = wsMaster.Cells(1, j).Value
For v = LBound(vWSs) To UBound(vWSs)
CurrSheet = xlWb.Sheets(vWSs(v))
If CBool(Application.CountIf(CurrSheet.Range("A2:ZA2"), colName)) Then
Set Mrange = CurrSheet.Range("A2:ZA2")
Set Vrange = CurrSheet.Range("A:ZA")
AccountCol = Application.Match(j, Mrange, 0)
'
For i = 2 To LastRow
wsMaster.Cells(i, j) = Application.VLookup(wsMaster.Cells(i, 1), Vrange, AccountCol, 0)
Next i
End If
Next v
Set Mrange = Nothing
Set Vrange = Nothing
'
Next j
End Sub
Hope this helps.

Answer 2

While I can't authoritatively answer VBA-specific questions, I can provide a general programming suggestion.
If the values you want to iterate through are already in your worksheets, you could collect the values from the worksheets. If not, you could create another worksheet to store the list of values.
If for some reason you can't externalize the data, you can simply create a single variable (or constant) to store the values in a collection. Depending on your use case, you can use a list (sequential) or map (key-value pairs) type to store them. This would enable you to iterate over the list or the set of keys, respectively.