title: Excel COUNTIFS: Trying to count delinquent dates for tasks that have not been completed
body: <p>I am trying to count the number of open tasks where the 'Plan' date is before 'Today's date', but does not have an 'Actual Completion Date'. Here is an example of the data I am working with (columns are separated by a comma):</p>
  
  <pre><code>Today's Date, 07/23/2013
  
  Item 1, Plan Date, 07/01/2013
  Item 1, Expected Completion Date, 08/02/2013
  Item 1, Actual Completion Date,
  Item 2, Plan Date, 07/01/2013
  Item 2, Expected Completion Date, 08/02/2013
  Item 2, Actual Completion Date, 12/01/2013
  Item 3, Plan Date, 08/23/2013
  Item 3, Expected Completion Date, 08/23/2013
  Item 3, Actual Completion Date,
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I tried using the 'COUNTIFS' function within excel to count items that do not have an 'Actual Completion Date', but have a 'Plan Date' prior to 'Today's date' (07/23/2013). In the example data above, I would expect the calculation to return '1' (since only Item 1 satisfies this criteria). However, I have not been successful in creating a 'COUNTIFS' function that would work.</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone help?
  I am trying using VBA to solve this problem.</p>
  
  <p>Here is an example of a 'COUNTIFs' function I tried but did not work (returned '0'):</p>
  
  <pre><code>=COUNTIFS(B4:B12,"Actual Completion Date",C4:C12,"",B4:B12,"Plan Date",C4:C12,"&lt;"&amp;$C$2)
  
  Column 'B' is for 'Plan Date', 'Expected Completion Date', and 'Actual Completion Date'.
  Column 'C' is for dates corresponding to 'Plan Date', 'Expected Completion Date', and 'Actual Completion Date'.
  Cell C2 is 'Today's Date' (07/23/2013).
  </code></pre>