Date lookup issue: Unable to get VLookup property of WorksheetFunction class - vba

Question

I've tried almost everything in most of the other similar type questions but I can't seem to solve the runtime error. Help please!
What I want to achieve:
1) My macro is supposed to get date from report summary files that are created every day hence, it requires the user to input which date of report he wants the data from
2) I use the vlookup method to get the data from the relevant row and input it into the central workbook with the macro
3) Every part of the code works except using the date to Vlookup and it will give me this error message
4) I have tested the code using other text based lookup values and the whole macro works (i.e. i looked up the row which has the "Total" value so it looks up "Total" but i require the macro to look up the rows with the date as the look up value)
Addtional Info:
1) In the lookup file, the dates are in the format of "m/d/yyyy" but presented in the format of "dd-mmm-yy" (but i've tried both and they dont work)
Sub GetData()
Dim strDate As Date
strDate = InputBox("Input date of report to retrieve (Format: DD-MM-YYYY)", "Input Date", Format(Now(), "DD-MM-YYYY"))
If IsDate(strDate) Then
'there is some code here not relevant but basically i need to keep manipulating the date throughout the code
With ActiveSheet
Dim XstrDate
Dim Xfile As String
XstrDate = Format(strDate, "mmm DD, YYYY")
Xfile = "C:\...\...\...\Report " & XstrDate & ".xls"
Dim wb As Workbook
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim rng As Range
Dim returnValue as Variant
Set wb = Application.Workbooks.Open(Xfile)
Set ws = wb.Worksheets("Summary")
Set rng = ws.Range("A:K")
Dim Xdate As String
Xdate = Format(XstrDate, "m/d/yyyy")
returnValue = Application.WorksheetFunction.VLookup(Xdate, rng, 2, 0)
'... more code
remember, i've tried looking up using the text in the same column and it returned me a value. So i suspect the problem lies with the date format or something
Any smart and kind soul want to offer some suggestions here:)

Answer 1

Excel internally stores dates as a Serial Number (e.g. 1/1/2014 = 41640), which you can observe yourself if you enter a date into a cell and then change the format to Number.
With this in mind it's unlikely that a VBA date and an Excel date can be matched using the VLookup function so in my experience the best solution is to convert your date into its serial number and then perform the VLookup on that value instead.
Dim Ndate As Long
Dim returnValue As Date
Ndate = DateSerial(<Year>, <Month>, <Day>)
returnValue = Application.WorksheetFunction.VLookup(Ndate, <rng>, <col>, False)
If you need to construct your DateSerial(...) function from a Date variable in VBA you can use the Year(<date>), Month(<date>), and Day(<date>) functions to break it down into the required components.
Note: I've tried this example in the format .VLookup(DateSerial(2014,1,1),...) and it still causes the same error, hence storing the return value of DateSerial in a numeric variable first.
Happy Coding!

Answer 2

I've taken a different approach and found another solution to this problem.
Rather than use Vlookup, this is the other method that bypass the problem of VLookup date format problem, (having defined vdate in previous statements)
Dim rnge As Range, i As Long
Sheets("Summary").Select
Columns("A:A").Select
Set rnge = Intersect(Selection, ActiveSheet.UsedRange)
If rnge Is Nothing Then
MsgBox "Date Not Found"
GoTo done
End If
For i = rnge.Count To 1 Step -1
If rnge.Cells(i).Value = vdate Then rnge.Cells(i).EntireRow.Copy _
Destination:=ThisWorkbook.Sheets("AnotherSheet").Range("A1")
Next
done:
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic
Application.ScreenUpdating = True