Question

I want my Excel sheet to track my input.

For example, when I enter something like ID and pressed the ENTER key, it will look up that ID in another sheet and found a NAME and replace the ID in the original cell where I input.

Is VBA ok to do this?

Simple example would be good, thank you.

Update:

Yes of course, only some certain cells I will enter the IDs so not the whole sheet need to be tracking.

Answer 1

Use the Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range) event handler (defined for a worksheet) for your task. This function will be called each time when a cell value of that worksheet has changed (by the user or by other vba code).

The Target parameter contains the range of cells that have been changed. Now iterate over the columns and rows in that range and perform the lookup/replace operation you want to do. Ensure with an additional Boolean variable that the event handler doesn’t invoke itself.

Public NoCellUpdateHandle As Boolean

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
    If NoCellUpdateHandle Then Exit Sub

    Dim row As Integer, col as Integer, idValue as String, replaceValue as String

    For Each columnObj In Target.Columns
        For Each rowObj In columnObj.Rows
            row = rowObj.Row
            col = columnObj.Column

            ' You can filter for certain rows/columns
            If row > 5 And row < 10 And col = 7 Then
                idValue = ActiveSheet.Cells(row, col).Value
                ' do the lookup for the id value in the other worksheet here
                ' replaceValue = lookup(idValue)

                ' Disable the event handler and perform the replacement
                NoCellUpdateHandle = True
                ActiveSheet.Cells(row, col).Value = replaceValue
                NoCellUpdateHandle = False
            End If
        Next rowObj
    Next columnObj
End Sub

That should be all you need.