Dynamic reference to table

In this example, the goal is to create a dynamic reference to an Excel Table in a formula. In other words, create a formula that can refer to an Excel table by name as a variable. The easiest way to do this in Excel is to assemble the reference as a text value using concatenation, then use the INDIRECT function to convert the text reference into a proper Excel reference.

In the example shown, the formulas in L5:L7 behave like these simpler formulas:

=SUM(West[Amount])
=SUM(Central[Amount])
=SUM(East[Amount])

However, instead of hardcoding the table into each SUM formula, the table names are listed in column K, and the formulas in column L use concatenation to assemble a reference to each table. This allows the same formula to be used in L5:L7.

The trick is the INDIRECT function to evaluate the reference. We start with:

=SUM(INDIRECT(K5&"[Amount]"))

which becomes:

=SUM(INDIRECT("West"&"[Amount]"))

and then:

=SUM(INDIRECT("West[Amount]"))

The INDIRECT function then resolves the text string into a proper structured reference:

=SUM(West[Amount])

And the SUM function returns the final result, 27,500 for the West region.

Note: INDIRECT is a volatile function and can cause performance issues in larger, more complex workbooks.