Formatting spreadsheet by cell values

[Aviator74]

Hi

I have a spreadsheet table set up as below where in column A I have a date and column B has related text.

Jul-16 Text
Jul-16 Text
Aug-16 Text
Sep-16 Text
Sep-16 Text
Sep-16 Text

The table is quite long and I was wondering if there was a way I can apply conditional formatting which creates an alternative colour band by the date in column A? Note that the number of rows per date are varied.

Thanks

 

[Muhammad_Usman]

If you want change color by month try this one. You have to apply color function for 12 months. 12 function

 

[Aviator74]

Thanks

This 'workaround' will work in the specific dataset I have but ideally I'm looking for a solution that can be applied to a dataset which may have many variations.