Sorry - probably not the best terminology in the title, but I haven't had my first coffee yet!
I just wondered how those of you who work with spreadsheets that are edited by multiple users go on.
I am our office's unofficial Excel expert (even though I am VERY far from expert). And I make the spreadsheets, that are then used by 5-6 people. These 5-6 people vary in ability from 'more than averagely competent', to 'not entirely sure what a mouse is'.
So I put in bits of validation here and there, but generally try to keep it as light as possible. Eg some cells ask for a date. The header will say 'Date of consent' - but some people will insist on putting in things like "might speak to her next time she comes to clinic". This is not a date. This messes me up. So I have put validation on those cells so they can only be dates. Some cells can only be things from a certain list etc.
But how far do I go? We have one where column K-N all have to be a date, or blanks.
If column K has a date in it, then at some point L or M or N also have to have a date. But only one of those. I think this is all blatantly obvious from the headers, but every time I look at it, someone has put a date in every single column, so I don't know what they mean.
So I'm thinking of now adding validation to that as well. But for various reasons our spreadsheets always end up quite big and clunky anyway (probably in no small part due to my lack of knowledge about neat ways to do stuff), and I'm just worried that if I add validation to virtually every cell then this will just compound the problem.
How do others manage?
Loads of validation, or do I just need to hit my (absolutely lovely) colleagues around the head a bit?!
I just wondered how those of you who work with spreadsheets that are edited by multiple users go on.
I am our office's unofficial Excel expert (even though I am VERY far from expert). And I make the spreadsheets, that are then used by 5-6 people. These 5-6 people vary in ability from 'more than averagely competent', to 'not entirely sure what a mouse is'.
So I put in bits of validation here and there, but generally try to keep it as light as possible. Eg some cells ask for a date. The header will say 'Date of consent' - but some people will insist on putting in things like "might speak to her next time she comes to clinic". This is not a date. This messes me up. So I have put validation on those cells so they can only be dates. Some cells can only be things from a certain list etc.
But how far do I go? We have one where column K-N all have to be a date, or blanks.
If column K has a date in it, then at some point L or M or N also have to have a date. But only one of those. I think this is all blatantly obvious from the headers, but every time I look at it, someone has put a date in every single column, so I don't know what they mean.
So I'm thinking of now adding validation to that as well. But for various reasons our spreadsheets always end up quite big and clunky anyway (probably in no small part due to my lack of knowledge about neat ways to do stuff), and I'm just worried that if I add validation to virtually every cell then this will just compound the problem.
How do others manage?
Loads of validation, or do I just need to hit my (absolutely lovely) colleagues around the head a bit?!
