I have an issue regarding data validation in Excel, namely how to dynamically set the validation source.
I have three tables, where the first contains a product ID and a product name. The second table contains a product ID together with a serial number. A third table has three columns; one for product ID, one for serial number and a description for e.g. error reporting.
What I want to do is related to the third column where I select the product ID in a drop-down box which is linked to the first table. This works perfectly fine. The second column though, must only allow serial numbers related to the product ID selected according to the relationship in the second table. Hence, the data validation list must be dynamically generated by the input in the first column.
The reason for having it in Excel is due corporate reasons and personally I'd use an SQL-database for this very issue. E.g. if I were to use SQL-syntax to generate the validation list, the corresponding SQL-statement would be:
SELECT serialNumber WHERE productId = 12345;
I've tried using the INDEX-MATCH, but unfortunately MATCH only returns a scalar value rather than an array. I have not come across array functions prior to today, but I assume such might be included in order to accomplish this and have tried a bit without success.
If I somehow were to acquire an array returning the row numbers where there is a match, the INDEX-function would accomplish my needs, I presume.
My question is therefore, is there a method to acquire an array of matched values or can my problem be solved using a more elegant solution? If it could be of value if it can be made without VBA, also for corporate security reasons.
Thanks in advance!
Related
I have a data table based on a query -> tblPrimaryProducts
tblPrimaryProducts has many columns, some of which are Category, SubCategory and Item.
If I were to use a filter on Category I would of course be able to see the SubCategories and Items in that Category. Likewise if I were to apply a filter to SubCategory in turn I would see a list of on the items in that specific Category + SubCategory selection. Ultimately this is the goal of data validation I am trying to implement.
There is a data entry table -> tblPackages
tblPackages has many fields, but importantly the three listed above need to be implemented in a controlled way via data validation so that each row can have the correctly selected Category + SubCategory + Item
I am unable to change the data table into an array or simple (or dynamic) named range because it will be refreshed any number of times and the column positions will potentially alter. This means that I have to use the table based naming system for both tables.
What I have so far is the following for a data validation formula using XLOOKUP:
XLOOKUP([#[Primary Category]] & [#[Primary SubCategory]], tblPrimaryProducts[Category] & tblPrimaryProducts[SubCategory], tblPrimaryProducts[Item],,0)
[#[Primary Category]] and [#[Primary SubCategory]] are fields in the tblPackages data entry table. The other fields listed come from tblPrimaryProducts. So far I have entered data by hand to test this out.
In the XL Formula window (where you can 'see' what your formula is doing while you fill in the fields) this seems to work and provides the output expected.
When I try to implement this as data validation it complains about an error in formula. If I place an INDIRECT at the beginning I get the syntax error popup. I have had issues in the past with INDIRECT that have been solved with the careful use of quotation marks. I cannot seem to find a way here to do this.
Does anyone have any ideas on how I might implement some data validation based off of a data table (as opposed to an array), or the query that the table is based on in this situation? Under normal circumstances I would use dynamic named ranges but here I cannot.
Any help or ideas greatly appreciated
In Office365 the following formula will get you the list of "Items" that satisfy the "Category" and "Subcategory" conditions.
=FILTER(tblPrimaryProducts[Item],(tblPrimaryProducts[Category]=[#[Primary Category]])*(tblPrimaryProducts[Subcategory]=[#[Primary Subcategory]]),"")
It will give you a #SPILL! error if inserted in a Table and it returns multiple items that match the two criteria. You may have to redesign your output table.
If you are intending to display just the filtered values, you can then use two dropdowns with list of categories and subcategories. The filter function can then use these cells to filter the Items from source data and display as a list below.
When I pull data from a SharePoint list into Power BI, the values are pulled incorrectly for columns having the data type -
Person or Group - instead of names, numerical values are pulled. I guess these are the IDs of the values
Lookup - instead of the actual values, '[list]' is pulled in a nested column. When I expand, numerical values are shown. Again, seems like IDs
All other data types are pulled properly.
To work around this problem, I first pull the data from the list to Excel and then to PBI. However, I want to eliminate this manual step as the list will have frequent updates and I will need to pull the list data into Power BI regularly.
What should be done to pull the actual values as they appear in the list?
For the lookup columns: You need to pull in the lists where the lookup values are being looked up from and then create a relationship based on ID.
For the People: Look here:fully explained how to deal with Person object
I did some looking around and was able to find a solution.
Using the FieldValuesAsText column in the Query Editor, I got the values in the table. values for both column types were available. Since, I only needed the text values it solved the purpose.
I have a little bit of an Excel problem and would be happy about any suggestions.
Long version: I have a dataset with raw data representing journal entries. The structure of this dataset can be seen here:
Now, what I want to achieve is to assign each row/each journal entry to a cost category (marketing, personnel, IT, depreciation, …) based on the values in the account number, type, and cost center rows, and, in a second step, break down the categories once more, eg. for labour costs, distinguish between direct and indirect labour costs.
The way my company does this right now is using an Excel sheet with several macros where the criteria are hardcoded in the VBA code to loop through the whole list, check if a row matches the criteria for a certain cost category, and if it does, copy the row to a new sheet (having one new sheet for each category), then using a second macro to break down the categories, assigning values to the “description”-column which is empty initially based on another set of criteria. Then, pivot tables are used on each of the new sub-datasets to calculate sums for each sub-category. These sums are finally used as input data for a management report (as seen in the image above) which is the ultimate goal of this whole ordeal.
Now, not only does this seem overly complicated to me and running the macros and manually adjusting the input ranges for the pivot tables takes forever, but also the criteria for allocating the costs can change quite often, and opening the VBA editor and changing the code is not really user-friendly.The initial idea was to maybe include some helper columns (one for each cost category) and somehow create an indicator variable being one of the entry falls in the respective category, and zero otherwise, and then use these columns for further calculations (e.g. for Sumifs and such).
The problem is that a) combinations of account number and type are not unique, so that one account number can go along with various types, and one type can go along with various account numbers, so the criteria can be something like C6 = 544300 OR 544700 AND D6<>110246, etc. And b) criteria can change, meaning sometimes a new account number or type is added that also has to be assigned to an already existing category such as labor costs, which would make it necessary to include that criterion in all the formulas for that particular cost category. So, is it possible to somehow create a criteria table for each category that serves as input for some sort of IF/SUMIF or lookup function?
Short version: I have a data set (can range from 5000 to up to 100000 rows, 8 columns) where I want to perform a lookup, but based on various criteria. And, in addition to that, it would be nice if the criteria could somehow be drawn from a separate list so that they can be modified fairly easily without having to change the formula itself. Is there a way to do so? Or do you think using the advanced filter might be the most suitable option?
I am trying to write a calculated member which acts differently depending on whether the user is filtering by that member or has it dragged down as rows or columns on their pivot table (using Excel).
The rules are:
1. If the user is using the date dimensin as a Report Filter in Excel, then the calculated member should get the maximum date out of all dates that they are filtered by.
2. If they have the date dimension as rows on the pivot table, then I need to apply ClosingPeriod and some other logic.
Please try this. The idea came from here.
Basically the dynamic named set represents what's in the report filters. And the EXISTING keyword trims the list of days down to the filter context of the current cell letting you detect say if one month is on rows. Compare counts and you can detect what the user did.
CREATE HIDDEN DYNAMIC SET CURRENTCUBE.SelectedDays as
[Date].[Date].[Date].Members;
CREATE MEMBER CURRENTCUBE.[Measures].[My Calc] as
CASE
WHEN SelectedDays.Count > {existing [Date].[Date].[Date].Members}.Count
THEN Tail({existing [Date].[Date].[Date].Members},1).Item(0).Item(0).Name
WHEN SelectedDays.Count < [Date].[Date].[Date].Members.Count
THEN Tail(SelectedDays,1).Item(0).Item(0).Name
END
Performance is going to not be good. And I suspect users will be confused with the results of your calc. If you want to describe the business scenario more I can maybe recommend a better approach.
In the past I have created websites that extract data from a database and format it using tables.
Now, I am trying to do the same thing but with Excel, and I'm lost. I am used to using SQL commands to extract data from given fields and then sort/manipulate it.
Currently, I am able to print a report that provides me with an Excel spreadsheet full of raw data, but I would like to make my life easier and organize it into a report.
The column that I would like to reference contains duplicates, but the data in the adjacent columns is different.
To give an example, assume I had a spreadsheet of sales transactions. One column would be the Customer ID, and the adjacent columns would contain the quantity, the cost per unit, total cost, order ID, etc.
What I would want to do in this case would be to select all the transactions with the same Customer ID and add them together based on their Order ID. Then, I would want to print the result to a second sheet.
I realize that I can use built-in functions to accomplish this, but I would also like to format this report evenually using VBA. Also, since I will have a variable number of rows that differ from one report to the next, I haven't encountered a fucnction that will allow you to add rows.
I'm assuming this must be done with VBA.
Well you can do it manually, but it would take ages. So VBA would be good, particularly as you would be able to generate future reports quickly.
My interpretation of what your saying is that each row in your report will be the total for one customer ID. If it's something else, I imagine the below will still be mostly relevant.
I think it would be a bit much to give you the full answer, particularly as you haven't provided full detail but to take a stab at what you'd do:
Create your empty report page, whether it be a new worksheet or a new workbook
Loop through the table (probably using While next is not empty)
a. Identifying if a row is for a customer ID you haven't covered yet
i. If so then add a new entry in your report
ii. Else add it to the existing customer ID record (loop through until you find it)
Format your report so it looks pretty, e.g:
a. Fill the background in white
b. Throw in some filled bars
c. Put in good titles and totals etc.
For part 1, it might be better building an array first and then dumping the contents into the report. It depends how process intensive it will be - if very intense, an array should shave off time.