How do I make a particular column required in Excel?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Our NPO is in the process of creating a reimbursement chart for our employees
and we're trying to make it so that if they do not fill in a particular
column entitled "Project," they will get an error message or will be unable
to sum their final expenses together.

Is there a way to make a single column required in an Excel sheet so that
not filling in this cell would block any more entries or would block a final
reimbursement number?

Thank you in advance for any help or advice!
 
Hi:
For conditional blocking access to a worksheet cell you need some
programming I believe.
However, assuming you have a defined list of projects you could "force" an
employee to make a pick from this list. Make this list on the same worksheet
in a column (say 10 projects in B50:B59) and next select the project input
cell, choose Validation... in the Data menu and in the "Allow" field pick
"List". A source box pops up and enter here B50:B59. Uncheck "Ignore Blank"
and Check "In-cell dropdown" if you want to get the list dropped down in the
cell when the user selects it. You can provide user instructions in the
Input Message tab. In the Error Alert tab you can formulate an alert message,
and select under "Style" Stop so the user cannot go onwards until they have
picked one of the projects. I hope this is what you'r looking for.
Note: you may wish to protect the sheet for prohibiting the user to change
cells B50:B59 (in this example). All cells are locked by default (which only
comes into force when protection is activated). For this, deselect the cells
in Cells/Format/Protection tab you want to enable the user to input data, and
protect the sheet (Tools menu/Protection/Protect sheet...).
GL,
Henk
 
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