I like this approach, I tend to do similar things, particularly marking cells to be filled in, and I also tend to choose pastel yellow for this. If there are different users / departments then I use some kind of colour code to indicate who puts what where (a bit like the “office use only” bit at the bottom of a paper form). Cells for data entry I would usually put validation on as well, if a simple ruleset exists.

I also use simple error indicators, such as a ! next to invalid cells and then a check cell at the top which looks for any errors and puts a big red banner across the whole screen screaming “something is wrong! check your data entry” (actually usually wording a bit more helpful than that). I have used conditional formatting to make the shading of entry cells clear once all cells have a valid (and hopefully correct) entry in them. This makes much cleaner printed versions if needed.

I have had couple of cases where one cell’s entry makes a big difference to the whole of the rest of a sheet, for example choosing a currency for an expenses claim form. In this case I used conditional formatting to colour the entry cells differently depending on what units they were in to make it really obvious. I changed the labels as well of course to give the right prompt.

Keep up the great blog!

I toke the liberty to post it, If you’ve got any problems with that I will remove it.

Jelle-Jeroen

Do you mind if I write a topic on my own blog about this…..?

Jelle-Jeroen

After reading Rob’s post I toke his way of thinking and wrote an array function for all the rows.
Its a little bit long but checked out correctly….. ( I think )

{=SQRT((SUM(counts)*SUM(MMULT(values^2,TRANSPOSE(counts)))-((SUM(MMULT(values,TRANSPOSE(counts))))^2))/(SUM(counts)*(SUM(counts)-1)))}

Thats just like me Simon.

Petr: VBA dead? Doesn’t bring money? You’re so wrong. I make a living being an Office dev and I am completely overwhelmed with (properly paid) work. VBA/Office experts are a rare breed and highly in demand. Note the most important word in the previous sentence: “experts”. That is what it takes to run a serious business as an Office developer.