UNIQUE function in Google Sheets - Real Business Scenario

Scenario Mode

👤 Your Role: You are a sales analyst at a retail company.

📋 Request: Your manager wants a list of all unique products sold last month to analyze product variety.

📊 Data: You have a sales data table with columns: Order ID, Product Name, Quantity, and Sale Date.

🎯 Deliverable: Create a list of unique product names sold last month using the UNIQUE function.

Sample Data

Order ID	Product Name	Quantity	Sale Date
1001	Notebook	5	2024-05-02
1002	Pen	10	2024-05-03
1003	Notebook	3	2024-05-04
1004	Marker	7	2024-05-05
1005	Pen	4	2024-05-06
1006	Stapler	2	2024-05-07
1007	Notebook	6	2024-05-08
1008	Marker	1	2024-05-09

1

Step 1: Select a blank cell where you want the unique product list to start, for example, cell F2.

Expected Result

2

Step 2: Enter the UNIQUE formula to extract unique product names from the Product Name column (B2:B9).

=UNIQUE(B2:B9)

Expected Result

The list shows: Notebook, Pen, Marker, Stapler

3

Step 3: Check that the list contains no duplicates and only the distinct product names sold last month.

Expected Result

Unique product names: Notebook, Pen, Marker, Stapler

Final Result

Unique Products Sold Last Month
------------------------------
Notebook
Pen
Marker
Stapler

✓There are 4 unique products sold last month.

✓Notebook and Pen are sold multiple times but appear once in the unique list.

✓This list helps focus on product variety without duplicates.

Bonus Challenge

Use the UNIQUE function combined with FILTER to list unique products sold only after May 5, 2024.

Show Hint

Use FILTER to select rows with Sale Date > DATE(2024,5,5), then apply UNIQUE on the filtered Product Name column.