Excel VBA - dynamic data lookup between sheets in VBA - excel

Question

I have been busy working on a number of dynamic excel workbooks learning on the go through forums and content like this site, but as I am coming to the final parts that will round off my workflow I am stumped by what I assumed would be a fairly simple VBA code.
Not wanting to muddy the water with the code I currently have, I will instead explain clearly the problem I am trying to solve, and the ways I have tried to approach this. Note that I am very much a novice, and would appreciate being pointed in the direction of some code that I am able to copy and amend to suit.
Problem
I have two sheets;
"Purchase_Orders" - is a master list of total value purchase orders with information associated with the total value.
"Purchase_Ledger" - is a full list of payment transactions that include a mixture of payments which are project and non-project related.
As a project will have multiple purchase order numbers, and purchase orders have multiple payments, I am looking to lock the sheet down so that the user selects the purchase order number they are making a payment against, and the columns for project data are automatically pulled across from "Purchase_Orders" that are associated with the purchase order.
The data is structured as follows:
"Purchase_Orders"
(A,7-4000) Purchase Order number
(B,7-4000) Project Number
(C,7-4000) Project Name
"Purchase_Ledger"
(A,7-10000) Payment Reference
(B,7-10000) Purchase Order number - purchase order is selected from a drop-down list of numbers validated from the list on "Purchase_Orders"
(C,7-10000) Project Number - to be copied across
(D,7-10000) Project Name - to be copied across
My Attempts
I have already spent so much time working on this from different angles. As there are likely to be some purchases that are required that do not necessarily require a purchase order number, I want to keep the project number column open and free from formulae.
Currently, I have an index and match formulae in VBA which only works when run manually and copies the whole columns across. Ideally, I am looking for only the relevant cells to update when a purchase order is selected. I am working on code to trigger the macro when the drop-down is selected, but this is all very clumsy and not what I am seeking to achieve.
I have also tried using vlookup, but again this would only work with a trigger and not dynamic.
Hopefully, this is a sizeable challenge for some to flex their grey matter. If you need more info let me know.
Thanks!
Jon
Current code:
Sub Copy_Purchase_Orders()
Dim k As Integer
For k = 7 To 10000
Cells(k, 6).Value = WorksheetFunction.Index(Range("B7:B4000"), WorksheetFunction.Match(Cells(k, 5).Value, Range("A7:A4000"), 0))
Cells(k, 7).Value = WorksheetFunction.Index(Range("C7:C4000"), WorksheetFunction.Match(Cells(k, 5).Value, Range("A7:A4000"), 0))
Next k
End Sub
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
If Not Application.Intersect(Range("E7:E1000"), Range(Target.Address)) Is Nothing Then
Call Copy_Purchase_Orders
End If
End Sub

Answer 1

So your current code is called whenever a selection happens in column E and then cycling through all rows from 7 to 10000 and populating it with the formula?
You could change the method to accept the cell / target / range / address and then only cycle through each of its rows (instead of 7 to 10000)
Something like this (untested because I didn't have data sample and short on time):
Sub Copy_Purchase_Orders(target As Range)
Cells(target.Row, 6).Value = WorksheetFunction.Index(Range("B7:B4000"), WorksheetFunction.Match(Cells(target.Row, 5).Value, Range("A7:A4000"), 0))
Cells(target.Row, 7).Value = WorksheetFunction.Index(Range("C7:C4000"), WorksheetFunction.Match(Cells(target.Row, 5).Value, Range("A7:A4000"), 0))
End Sub
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal target As Range)
If Not Application.Intersect(Range("E7:E1000"), Range(target.Address)) Is Nothing Then
Call Copy_Purchase_Orders(target)
End If
End Sub
edit
To reference a particular worksheet when using Range objects, you should "qualify" them with the worksheet you're targeting (it's always safer to do this, you shouldn't really use Range or Cell objects alone:
So if want to move sheet 2 data to sheet 1 data, Instead of:
Range("A1").Value = Range("A1").Value '(VBA doesn't know which Range you mean)
You write:
Worksheets("Sheet 1").Range("A1").Value = Worksheets("Sheet 2").Range("A1").Value
So, you just need to qualify the ranges in your code, I think like so:
Cells(target.Row, 6).Value = WorksheetFunction.Index(Worksheets("Purchase_Orders").Range("B7:B4000"), WorksheetFunction.Match(Cells(target.Row, 5).Value, Worksheets("Purchase_Orders").Range("A7:A4000"), 0))
I think for the purposes of your code at the minute, you can leave it there. If you decided to build more on these existing routines, you should really qualify your Cell objects too, however it would end up very wordy:
Worksheets("Purchase_Ledger").Cells(target.Row, 6).Value = WorksheetFunction.Index(Worksheets("Purchase_Orders").Range("B7:B4000"), WorksheetFunction.Match(Worksheets("Purchase_Ledger").Cells(target.Row, 5).Value, Worksheets("Purchase_Orders").Range("A7:A4000"), 0))
To cut down on mess, you can declare worksheets as variables and set them as particular sheets:
Dim ws1 As Worksheet
Dim ws2 As Worksheet
Set ws1 = Worksheets("Purhcase_Orders")
Set ws2 = Worksheets("Purchase_Ledger")
Then use them in place of writing their full object name:
ws2.Cells(target.Row, 6).Value = WorksheetFunction.Index(ws1.Range("B7:B4000"), WorksheetFunction.Match(ws2.Cells(target.Row, 5).Value, ws1.Range("A7:A4000"), 0))
There are even more shortcuts and declarations you can use to make code more succinct, safer, reusable and scalable, if you choose to really dive into VBA coding. Ranges can be variables, using sheet codenames, using With blocks, in-line evaluate - all things that could be employed to your code so far.