Can I Use a Formula with Data Validation>List

[ediejane]

Hi.

I am creating a spreadsheet for product attributes, which will ultimately be used for generating product SKUs.

On one sheet of same workbook I created lists for size, color, material, etc. and applied Define Name. On another sheet (same workbook) I created a drop-down list using Data Validation for each attribute. Please note, each attribute option has a long value and short value. For example, if the user selects the color "black" from the drop-down, "black" is the long value, however for the purposes of creating the SKU, the short value for "black" will be "bk" (quotes are not in cells).

Here's where it gets tricky me. How do I convert the long to short? In other words, if "black" is selected from the drop-down, how to I get "bk" to display in the same cell? Is this possible where Data Validation>List has been applied?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Edie-Jane

 

[iliace]

I would give thought as to whether you actually need it to be in the same cell. Can't you have another lookup table (with conversion from long to short), and use a VLOOKUP to generate the SKU in the background?

In other words, if you had a table like this in A1:B3

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 500, align: left"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD]black[/TD]
[TD]bk[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]blue[/TD]
[TD]bl[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]red[/TD]
[TD]rd[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]






your dropdown is in column D, where user selects one of the colors, and then in your SKU column:

=VLOOKUP($D5, $A$1:$B$3, 2, FALSE) & "1234"

where the SKU would be bk1234, in this example.