Dynamic dropdowns are a handy way to get your users to make choices based on what they’ve previously chosen, while steering them away from making invalid choices. Today we’re going to look at one that easily handles multiple levels, and we’ll take a look at what could go wrong. Let’s see one in action, shall we?
Right, what’s on the (dropdown) menu?
Fruit, anyone?
*BING!*
Cool…check it out…as you can see from the above, the user gets prompted with “Choose…” whenever a subsequent choice must be made.
Ok, what kind of fruit should I have? Hmmm, let me see….eeny, meeny, miny, STRAWBERRIES!!!…MO!
*BING!*
Ok, so what delights does Sub Category 2 have in store for me?
Earliglow? Never heard of it. Sounds delicious…I’ll have those, please.
*BING!*
There, all done. Pretty nifty eh…users only get to see valid choices depending on what they chose last. So users simply can’t screw up! Or can they?
[Evil user, determined to prove me wrong]: Wait a minute…I just remembered that mother expects me to eat my vegetables first, before I move on to dessert. So I better change that initial selection:
*BING!*
What the…Strawberries are vegetables???
Damn…changing upstream dropdowns later on means those downstream choices can be flat out wrong! So how can we make this bulletproof?
Macros to the rescue
Yep, we’ll use some code to clear out any ‘downstream’ choices if anything ‘upstream’ changes. Let’s go back to that original strawberry fest:
Now watch what happens when our user subsequently decides they better vege out first:
*BING!*
Ahh…look at that: the code realized that all those downstream choices are no longer valid. So it deleted them, and prompted the user to choose again. There. Now that IS bulletproof.
So let’s see…hmmm…for an appetizer, I’ll have baby carrots:
And I already decided on Strawberries for pudding…
But what about my main course. Ah, yes, of course…
MEAT! Yummy. BURP!
What’s the recipe?
My approach draws on Roger Govier’s excellent sample file on the Contextures website. Be sure to check out that link to see Roger’s in-depth discussion of the formula magic behind this puppy…It’s genius.
In my Dynamic-Dependent-dropdowns-20140214, you’ll see that all the different categories used by the dropdowns are hosted in an Excel Table, that has the initial categories down the left hand side, and subsequent categories across the top:
So how do these categories get used by the data validation dropdowns? Roger’s approach uses two dynamic named ranges to feed the data validation lists, one called MainList and one called SubList:
Here’s the MainList formula:
=INDEX(Table1[[Choose…]],1):INDEX(Table1[[Choose…]],COUNTA(Table1[[Choose…]]))
…and here’s the SubList formula:
=IF(OR(Sheet1!B8="Choose…",Sheet1!B8=""),"",INDEX(Table1,1,MATCH(Sheet1!B8,Table1[#Headers],0)):INDEX(
Table1,COUNTA(INDEX(Table1,,MATCH(Sheet1!B8,Table1[#Headers],0))),MATCH(Sheet1!B8,Table1[#Headers],0)))
The SubList formula has a relative reference in it: whatever cell you use it in, it retrieves the value of the cell to the immediate left, and then it scans the column headers of our validations table (Table1) looking for the heading that matches that value. Once it’s found it, it simply uses the items listed underneath that heading.
Because this formula is relative, before you enter it into the Name Manager, you will need to first select cell C8, because the above relative formula refers to B8 – the cell to the left. (Note that it doesn’t matter what is in C8 or where your actual dropdown are…rather it’s just that the above formula happens to refer to B8, and because we want our formula to always reference the cell on the immediate left, then we’ve got to select the cell to the immediate right before we enter this relative formula into the Name Manager.
Also note that my version of Roger’s approach uses Excel Tables and the associated Structured References that Table functionality allows. My table is called Table1. Your validation lists MUST be held within an Excel Table (which requires Excel 2007 or greater) and you MUST change the Table1 references in the above formula to match the name of your table.
Excel Tables – known as ListObjects to VBA developers – were introduced in Excel 2007, and are a very powerful and simple way to store things like lists, chart data, and PivotTable data…especially if you might need to add more data to your spreadsheet at a later date, and want to avoid having to repoint all your formulas to include the additional data. If you’re not familiar with Excel Tables – or you don’t know what that Table1[#Headers] guff above means – then I strongly suggest you check out Chandoo’s Introduction to Structural References and this great video he did with MrExcel.
The way these two formulas work is very clever. That MainList named range only gets used by dropdowns in that very first ‘Main Category’ column:
…and all other ‘downstream’ dropdowns – no matter what level they are – are fed by the SubList named range:
The beauty of Roger’s approach is that it can handle any number of cascading levels, provided all the category names are unique. All you need to do is simply add the new subcategories to the right hand side of our validations table (Table1).
Let’s look at an example. If you look at the below screenshot, you’ll see that users can choose from a number of different kinds of meat:
Let’s add a further level that would give meat eaters some further choices relating to how their meat is prepared.
To set this up, all we need to do is take the individual items from that ‘Meat’ column and add each one as a new column header:
Then we simply list the new options for each type of meat below the relevant header:
Now here’s the magic: as soon as we add another column to our input table and set it up with data validation – which I did simply by clicking on the bottom right corner of the cell with the word ‘Human’ and dragging it across – then Excel picks up on the fact that there’s a sub-subcategory, and serves it up to us. *BING!* Order up!
Add code, and stir-fry for 10 milliseconds
As mentioned earlier, in addition to Roger’s great method, I’ve written some code that clears out any downstream entries in the event that an upstream entry is changed. It’s in the sample workbook already, all set to go. But here’s the actual code, for you VBA nerds. (Special thanks to Gabor Madacs for some enhancement suggestions)
Option Explicit
Const CHOOSE = "Choose…"
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
Dim targetCell As Range
Dim nextCell As Range
Dim oldCalc As Excel.XlCalculation
If Not Intersect(Target, [DataEntryTable]) Is Nothing Then
If [Radio_Choice] = 1 Then
With Application
.EnableEvents = False
.ScreenUpdating = False
oldCalc = .Calculation
.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
End With
For Each targetCell In Target
'Clear any cells that use 'SubList' to the right of targetCell in the current table.
If targetCell.Column < (targetCell.ListObject.ListColumns.Count + targetCell.ListObject.Range.Column - 1) Then 'there are table cells to the right
For Each nextCell In targetCell.Offset(, 1).Resize(, targetCell.ListObject.ListColumns.Count + targetCell.ListObject.Range.Column - targetCell.Column - 1)
If HasValidationFormula(nextCell) Then
If nextCell.Validation.Formula1 = "=SubList" Then nextCell.Value = ""
End If
Next nextCell
End If
'Perform different action depeding on whether we're dealing with a 'MainList' dropdown
' or a 'SubList' dropdown
If HasValidationFormula(targetCell) Then
Select Case targetCell.Validation.Formula1
Case "=MainList"
If targetCell.Value = "" Then
targetCell.Value = CHOOSE
ElseIf targetCell.Value = CHOOSE Then
'Do nothing.
Else
targetCell.Offset(, 1).Value = CHOOSE
End If
Case "=SubList"
If targetCell.Value = "" Then
targetCell.Value = CHOOSE
ElseIf targetCell.Offset(, -1).Value = CHOOSE Then
targetCell.Value = ""
ElseIf targetCell.Value = CHOOSE Then
'Do nothing
Else
Set nextCell = targetCell.Offset(, 1)
If HasValidationFormula(nextCell) Then
If nextCell.Validation.Formula1 = "=SubList" Then nextCell.Value = CHOOSE
End If
End If
End Select
End If
Next targetCell
With Application
.EnableEvents = True
.ScreenUpdating = True
.Calculation = oldCalc
End With
End If
End If
Exit Sub
ErrorHandler:
With Application
.EnableEvents = True
.ScreenUpdating = True
If oldCalc <> 0 Then .Calculation = oldCalc
End With
MsgBox Err.Description, vbCritical, Name & ".Worksheet_Change()"
End Sub
Private Function HasValidationFormula(cell As Range) As Boolean
On Error GoTo ValidationNotExistsError
If cell.Validation.Formula1 <> "" Then
HasValidationFormula = True
Else
HasValidationFormula = False
End If
Exit Function
ValidationNotExistsError:
HasValidationFormula = False
End Function
Hungry for more?
Here’s some related Posts at Chandoo.org:
Download the file
To see how this is done, download this file and enable macros:
Dynamic-Dependent-dropdowns-20140214
About the Author.
Jeff Weir – a local of Galactic North up there in Windy Wellington, New Zealand – is more volatile than INDIRECT and more random than RAND. In fact, his state of mind can be pretty much summed up by this:
=NOT(EVEN(PROPER(OR(RIGHT(TODAY())))))
That’s right, pure #VALUE!
Find out more at http:www.heavydutydecisions.co.nz
23 Responses to “Displaying Text Values in Pivot Tables without VBA”
Its possible to display up to 4 text values.
Have a look at the screen shot of an example that I had posted way back at the EHA and figure out how its done !
http://tinypic.com/r/muzywk/6
With Excel 2010 you can use Conditional Formatting to apply custom number formats which can display text. (In older versions you can only modify text color and cell background color, but not number formats.) Using CF allows for an even larger number of different display values.
[...] Display text values in Pivot Tables without VBA [...]
Hey,
Thanks, this helps. But how do you do it for multiple values where there is a huge amount of non repeating text?
@Soumya
The only way to do more than 4 values is to make the Pivot Table manually with formulas, of course then it isn't a Pivot table
You can of course do it with VBA
You may want to have a look at this description of how to do it here: http://www.clearlyandsimply.com/clearly_and_simply/2011/06/emulate-excel-pivot-tables-with-texts-in-the-value-area-using-vba.html
@Soumya
The only way to do more than 4 values is to make the Pivot Table manually with formulas, of course then it isn’t a Pivot table
You can of course do it with VBA
You may want to have a look at this description of how to do it here: http://www.clearlyandsimply.com/clearly_and_simply/2011/06/emulate-excel-pivot-tables-with-texts-in-the-value-area-using-vba.html
[...] Pivot Tables take tables of data and allow the user to summarise and consolidate the data at the same time. This is a great and very fast method of analysis but is restricted to handling mathematical functions on the value field resulting in numerical summaries. – read more [...]
[…] Read more here: Displaying Text Values in Pivot Tables without VBA […]
There is a very good way actually for handling text inside values area.
First you create a special column on the very left side and call it ID, and put unique ID (numbers only), and then create a pivot table with:
Row Labels and Column labels as you like, and in the Values labels use the unique ID number.
Move the unique ID number (copy paste) somewhere to the right and use vlookup to load the data you need using the ID as reference.
It is a bit longer way but for me it works perfectly to combine values as you like in any moment.
hope helps.
Regards,
Jon
Thank you! I finally understand pivot tables thanks to your clear, concise explanations and examples.
Good Day. This is exactly what i have been looking for. However when i try it on my pivot table or even when i try to recreate this exercise using the sample worksheet, i get this error:
"Microsoft Excel cannot use the number format you typed. Try using one of the built-in number formats."
Same thing here, Excel quite did not like the format in my PowerPivot. Any clues as to what may be going on? Thanks.
I have the same thing happening on my end. I'm running a normal pivot table on a .xlsm file.
@Danzi
What format did you use?
can you post the file ?
pls. help in table there is name, pan. amount. i have to make pivot table for example
NAME PAN AMOUNT
MR.X AAAAC1254T 500.00
MR.Y AAABR1258C
MR.A CFVDE2458T
MR.Z AAVCR12548C
MR.X AAAAC1254T
MR.Z AADCD245T
pls. help in table there is name, pan. amount. i have to make pivot table for example
NAME PAN AMOUNT
MR.X AAAAC1254T 500.00
MR.Y AAABR1258C 1000
MR.A CFVDE2458T 2000
MR.Z AAVCR12548C 5451
MR.X AAAAC1254T 45564
MR.Z AADCD245T 4500
how to get pivot tabe so i get PAN no. against Name.
I found an easy way to get text values in pivot table.
I create an other worksheet in wich each cell has a formula that copy the pivot table. The trick is that the formula does a lookup for the numbers in the pivot table.
The formula looks like that:
=IF(ISNUMBER(table!A1);VLOOKUP(table!A1;Code!$A$1:$B$65;2);IF(ISBLANK(table!A1);" ";table!A1))
Code is a worksheet where there is a liste of text /numbers correspondance.
As a bonus The new sheet is easier to format
Additional trick:
In my case, i encoded differents codeid with a power(2, codeId-1) so that summing then is equivalent to concatenate them.
1-A
2-B
4-C
8-D
yields :
5 - AC
14 - BCD
Hi
I want to ask if pivot can display dates in pivot field. As in a column i have customers and in row different items i want to know there last purchase date. anyone help in this??
Hello Guys, Need your help
I am doing some analysis of the cycle time of the product i.e how much time a product takes from manufacturing to the central warehouse.
I have batch numbers for the product and against them i have to pull out the diff. dates
Like the base date is from where the manufacturing start. So i have the batch number,against it's manuf. date. Now i have to pull out the date when it was quality released.
I have the quality released data but the data have duplicates, like i will have two dates or may be three for the same batch. So my main objective is to pull out the date which is latest among them.
BATCH NO. DATE of Mfg. DATE of Quality release
A1 12/4/2014 (HERE I HAVE TO PULL value)
Next Sheet
BATCH NO. DATE of Quality Release
A1 14/5/2014
a2 23/5/2016
A1 12/5/2014
A1 13/6/2014
From this sheet i have to pull up the latest date format of date here is dd/mm/yyy
TIA
[…] needed to present text instead of counts in a pivot table value column. Here is an excellent resource for Excel manipulation, in addition to an overview of pivot […]
This is great thank you.
Wow!!! Excellent!! It helped me a lot.
I am developing training tracking sheet for 200 employees with training completed date. Each employee will be attending 25 courses. How to indicate actual dates in pivot table value field.