Question

I am making a database project. So I want excel to warn me, or prevent me, going to another row before the column is properly filled.

For example:

Person | Standard therapy | Alt Therapy 1 | Alt Therapy 2
1      | yes              | -             | -
2      | no               | -             | -

So if I put “no” in Standard Therapy, I want excel to prevent me going to another Person (or the next row) before I have filled in the columns for Alt Therapy 1 and 2 (these columns have drop-down lists) or at least warn me that these columns need to be filled in.

How do I do that?

Answer 1

Using conditional formatting to highlight the cells that must be filled out before leaving a record may be adequate for your needs. The idea is to set a conditional format that will specify when a necessary value is missing from a record and warn you with a conspicuous visual cue that does not go away until you enter an appropriate value.

For instance, assuming that your example begins in cell A1, you could first apply a conditional format for bright yellow fill to cell B2 with the formula “=and(len(a2)>0,len(b2)=0)”. You could then apply a conditional format to cell C2 with the formula “and(b2=”no”,len(c2)=0″, again specifying a bright yellow fill for C2. Etc. (The conditions I’ve used are for illustration only; you would know the exact requirements for your data.)

You would need to set all the conditional formats for your first row of data, then copy and paste those formats down for all rows in the data area of your sheet.