# spreadsheetbench-verified / 9569

- taskset: [spreadsheetbench-verified](https://harnessreport.com/tasks/spreadsheetbench-verified.md)
- difficulty: hard
- category: spreadsheet-manipulation
- language: 
- runnable from the site: no
- agent timeout: 600s

## Results by harness

_none yet_

## Instruction

```
You are a spreadsheet expert who can manipulate spreadsheets through Python code.

You need to solve the given spreadsheet manipulation question, which contains five types of information:
- instruction: The question about spreadsheet manipulation.
- spreadsheet_path: The path of the spreadsheet file you need to manipulate.
- instruction_type: There are two values (Cell-Level Manipulation, Sheet-Level Manipulation) used to indicate whether the answer to this question applies only to specific cells or to the entire worksheet.
- answer_position: The position need to be modified or filled. For Cell-Level Manipulation questions, this field is filled with the cell position; for Sheet-Level Manipulation, it is the maximum range of cells you need to modify. You only need to modify or fill in values within the cell range specified by answer_position.
- output_path: You need to generate the modified spreadsheet file in this new path.

Below is the spreadsheet manipulation question you need to solve:
### instruction
I need a formula to identify the earliest non-zero value entered for each row, specifically within column 'AO,' from a range of months (e.g., from Jan 2015 onward). The workbook I'm working on will be updated monthly with new data, and the values are percentages such as 17.07% for contract #10007 in Mar-2015. It is important that the formula avoids using array formulas to prevent the workbook from freezing due to a potentially long list of data.
I am struggling to find a formula that I could use in order to find the EARLIEST value entered from several months. Attached is a workbook that will be populated each month and will potentially have values from Jan 2015 through whatever the latest month would be........for each row, I need to pick the earliest value entered on column "AO". As an example on 1st row, the earliest value for contract # 10007 is 17.07% entered in Mar-2015, contract 10008 would 18.20% entered in Jun 2015, etc..Since this list will be long, it would be preferable to have a formula that does not use array formulas as I find that this type of formula typically freezes the workbook. Need to enter a formula that captures the earliest value entered from any given time period without manually entering value in each row.

### spreadsheet_path
/app/spreadsheets/1_9569_input.xlsx

### instruction_type
Cell-Level Manipulation

### answer_position
AO9:AO1288

### output_path
/app/output/1_9569_output.xlsx

You should generate Python code for the final solution of the question.
```
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