Tuesday, April 19, 2011

yogi_Populate One Dropdown List From A Second

Yogi Anand, D.Eng, P.E.                                         Google Spreadsheet                            www.energyefficientbuild.com

Stoickk said:
I am trying to find a way to populate a dropdown list based on the selection from a second dropdown list. Short version, my spreadsheet is used for tracking personnel in an organization. When personnel are assigned to a unit via dropdown list, I would like to be able to assign them to a sub-unit based on the first unit that was selected. Is this possible with google docs?
Basically, if I select Alpha Company (Sheet2, cell A2) from the dropdown in Column C, I want a dropdown list in Column B to be populated with the three subunit names from Sheet2, cells B2, C2, and D2. I want the same thing to happen if I select Bravo Company or Charlie Company, with the dropdown list in Column B changing based on the selection in Column C.
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Well, I think it is best explained by looking at yogi_Sheet1



5 comments:

  1. Stoickk asked if the dependent list from the Companies_subs could be made into a dropDown so that when a Company is selected from the Company dropDown in cell C2, the dropDown in cell B2 dynamically updates for the selected Company_subs. I have added a sheet yogi_Sheet1a for this feature.

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  2. Great work, this looks like exactly what I need. Do you have a working example of this that I can look at?

    Cheers.

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  3. hello yogi, i am not able to follow comments on yogi_Sheet1a

    Example:
    1.create list from range ... yogi_Sheet2!F2:F10; F2: yogi_Sheet2!A2:A4
    the range - yogi_Sheet2!F2:F10 has your comments. do you want to create range?

    2.when a Company is selected fromdropDown in cell E2? I guess we are populating company list on C2 ?

    Or Am I reading it wrong?

    By the way, I tried configuring Data Validation for B2 with the range as " =transpose(indirect(C2))", google triggers error as unknown range.

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  4. Hi Saint:

    Let me share the associated spreadsheet with you https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkHBcyclu11AdExEc1ZyNFVZMFBZV2luMnhwUnkwSVE&hl=en_US&authkey=CI26t7MP
    I suggest you make a copy of this and see the associated range names and other information.

    Cheers!
    Yogi

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  5. Hello Yogi,

    I was trying to use your solution but am also having problems trying to follow the solution.

    I can see where you have the range of options. However when I try to create the dropdown2 with the =transpose(inderect(c2)) where C2 is the dropdown created by the validation option I'm getting an error that the argument must have a range.

    I guess I just don't follow how do you create the range for the second drop down.

    Thanks!!

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