Tip #10: 3 helpful ways to use data validation in your spreadsheet

Tip #10: 3 helpful ways to use data validation in your spreadsheet

Data validation in spreadsheets makes data entry processes more efficient, while helping reduce inconsistencies and errors in your data sets. In this article, we'll look at three ways you can use data validations to create useful dropdown lists in your spreadsheets.

Dynamic data validations

Dynamic validations help you create a new dropdown list based on an existing dropdown list or range of values. Let's say the first dropdown has the names of all the departments in your organization. You can now create a secondary dropdown list that displays designations based on the value chosen from the first dropdown!  



Dynamic data validation can be achieved using the lookup functions based on the number of criteria required. Here's a published spreadsheet for a hands-on experience!

Dropdowns with symbols  

You might need to include symbols in your spreadsheet for comprehension or visual presentation. Create a validation with a list of desired text symbols and easily access them when needed.  



Note: Only text icons can be used in data validation. There are many sites offering free text icons for easy use via copy-paste.
 

Condition-based validations

Apart from dropdowns, you can use data validation to restrict or allow data entry, and set conditions on a range based on values in other cells. This way, you can restrict edits on a range without using Lock!



Join the Zoho Sheet community and stay up to date on the latest features, interact with fellow users, and learn from the team behind Zoho Sheet. For more exciting tips, follow our  Tips and Tricks forum.

    • Sticky Posts

    • Tip #18: 6 Trendlines and when to use them in your spreadsheet data?

      Charts are a great tool for visualizing and interpreting large chunks of data in spreadsheets. Zoho Sheet offers you 35+ chart options, along with AI-powered chart recommendations based on the data set you select. There are various chart elements that

    • Tip #16: Ask Zia your data-related questions and get powerful insights

      Zoho Sheet provides a variety of tools and functionalities to help you analyze your data from end to end. But what if you could analyze all your data sets with a single AI-powered tool? Meet Zia, our smart virtual assistant who will answer all your data-related

    • Tip #17: Easily share spreadsheets with non-Zoho account users

      With efficient, collaboration-friendly options, Zoho Sheet is a popular choice among users. Sheet's external share links help you collaborate more effectively by sharing your spreadsheets with anyone outside your organization, including users who do not

    • Tip #7: Four things you didn't know you can do with Conditional Formatting

      Conditional formatting helps you highlight and visualize data in your spreadsheet based on provided rules. Zoho Sheet offers three types of conditional formatting: Classic, Color Scales, and Icon Sets. If you're already familiar with how Conditional Formatting works, here are some bonus tips for Classic formats: Customize rules with formulas Zoho Sheet allows you to create personalized rules based on formulas. For example, in a task list you can use customized formulas to highlight tasks which are

    • Tip #15: Stop guessing and start estimating with Zoho Sheet's Goal Seek

      Goal Seek is an ideal spreadsheet tool for devising estimates, as it helps you retrieve your desired output value when the input values are not known. In other words, Goal Seek does back-solving to find input values once you've provided an output value.

      • Recent Topics

      • Managing Prepaid Hours for Consulting

        We are a consulting firm that bills clients a flat upfront annual fee plus an hourly rate and offer a discount for pre-paying a block of hours. Hours that surpass the pre-paid block are billed monthly at the normal rate. If there are any pre-paid hours remaining at the end of the project they are banked for future use. I'm not seeing a method of doing this in Projects/Books/CRM... thoughts?

      • ZOHO Widget SDK not loading in html

        I have this code below, I have imported the widgetsdk however I get the error shown in the image, I have tried many different ways of importing and initiating the function ZOHO but nothing is working. can someone explain what I'm doing wrong, if I am

      • Enhancements to Zoho Corp Help Center "Team Requests" View

        Dear Zoho Team, I hope this message finds you well. The ability to view both my tickets and my team’s tickets in the Zoho Corp Help Center is a fantastic feature, especially as the focal point for Zoho in our organization. However, we’ve encountered a

      • Allow Multiple Scheduled Appointments with Zoho Support

        Dear Zoho Team, I hope you're doing well. First, thank you for introducing the option to schedule support calls via the Zoho CRM booking link. This has been a fantastic enhancement, eliminating the need for back-and-forth coordination when scheduling

      • Projectwise budget ---

        Can we have a Project wise subject in addition to the Monthly, and quarterly ACCOUNT LEVEL budget?

      • WorkDrive API Documentation

        WorkDrive provides users and developers an extensive set of APIs to help integrate functionalities of Zoho WorkDrive with other Zoho applications and third-party tools. We have published the official WorkDrive API Documentation page for all external users.

      • Error 403: Forbidden When Updating Email Signature via API

        Hi Zoho Desk team, First, congratulations again on the excellent Zoho API. But, I’m encountering an issue while attempting to update an email signature via the API. Whenever I make a request to update the signature, the response returns an HTTP 403 Forbidden

      • Who can see draft replies on tickets?

        We have noticed that we are able to see draft replies made by other agents. Which settings can limit this visibility? It makes sense to me that admins and the agent who created the draft would be able to see the draft, but no one else. How can we make

      • Serious question: Are there actually "solo-preneurs"/small business owners who made Zoho-one work well for them?

        L.S. After already many years of continued struggle with Zoho-One, I am seriously wondering if there are actually solo-preneurs (one person small business owners - without a large, dedicated IT dept.) who got it (Zoho-One) to work well for their businesses.

      • Major iOS issues when accessing forms via the browser

        Hi, We have been using forms for some time, while the office staff are accessing the forms via the app on Android mobiles, we have a fleet of sub contractors that we would not like them having access to the main app as some of the forms are confidential

      • All notes disappeared

        I've been using the notebook app for over five years on my phone without being logged into an account. A few days ago I opened the app and all my notes had disappeared. Since then I tried restarting my phone, updating the app and logging into my account,

      • How to Iterate a Function in Zoho Desk Workflow with Delay Between Calls?

        Hi everyone, I’m working on a function in Zoho Desk that searches for a specific ticket record. If the ticket is not found, I need to retry the search multiple times with a delay between each attempt until the ticket is located or a maximum number of

      • How to Iterate a Function in Zoho Desk Workflow with Delay Between Calls?

        Hi everyone, I’m working on a function in Zoho Desk that searches for a specific ticket record. If the ticket is not found, I need to retry the search multiple times with a delay between each attempt until the ticket is located or a maximum number of

      • Work Orders / Bundle Requests

        Zoho Inventory needs a work order / bundle request system. This record would be analogous to a purchase order in the purchasing workflow or a sales order in the sales cycle. It would be non-journaling, but it would reserve the appropriate inventory of

      • Zoho Books API Limit Is RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

        The 2,500 API call limit in Zoho Books is about as useful as AOL dialup.  Seriously Zoho, not only can I use up 2,500 API calls in no time with my own app but YOUR OWN STUPID IPAD APP blows through them super fast too, so if any one of my clients wants

      • QR codes in templates

        I'm excited about the new QR code generator. I have included a QR code that contains the record ID setting "${ID}" as input data. In the report detail it works perfectly but when printing it in a template the code is not shown.

      • Button Display Conditions

        Hi Guys, Is it at all possible to have extra button conditions? Context: We have data in our deals module which has a custom button which converts the deal into contacts + set up relationships between them. At the end of the conversion we set a field

      • Knowledge base: The nitty-gritty of SEO tags

        A well-optimized knowledge base with great SEO can benefit your company by allowing customers to find help articles and support resources using search engines. This enables customers to quickly and efficiently find the information they need without direct

      • Social Media Simplified with Zoho Social: Make the best out of the publishing calendar

        Are you a marketer who likes visualizing your plan of action before you start social media posting? Are you part of a team that works on social media on a rotational basis, so the most important task is to collaborate to avoid overlap and confusion? Or

      • Custom function daily limit and procedural programming

        Dearest Zoho Today, support confirmed that if I call a custom function from another custom function then I will use up two, with regards to my daily limit. A few times, we have blown our daily limit and that means that ordinary business processes don't run for the rest of the day. I have to mop these up the following day and there is no guarantee that I will get it right. Therefore, I can't afford to waste any. Procedural programming has been around for over 50 years now and it greatly simplifies

      • Unified customer portal login

        As I'm a Zoho One subscriber I can provide my customers with portal access to many of the Zoho apps. However, the customer must have a separate login for each app, which may be difficult for them to manage and frustrating as all they understand is that

      • Welcome Link Expired

        Hi The links sent to the users didn't get clicked on in time and now all the links have expired. Is there a way to send a new link without deleting them and re-adding them>

      • New enhancements: Changing portal users' email addresses and new customization options for templates

        Dear All, Portals have enabled organizations to extend access to various CRM modules to their customers, vendors, partners, and end users, per their business requirements. When a portal is created, an invitation email is sent to portal users with a link

      • Granular Time Frame Settings for Message Deletion and Editing in Zoho Cliq

        Dear Zoho Team, I hope you're doing well. Currently, the settings for message deletion and editing in Zoho Cliq are configured globally under: Admin Panel > Organisation > Configurations > Conversations Delete messages: Time frame to allow message deletion

      • New Built In QR/Barcode Generator Print Settings

        I'm trying out the new QR/Barcode generator field in Creator. I would think most people will want to print these, like I do. I am not seeing any way to control the height or width of the barcode for printing (inside the print/pdf template builder). The

      • Zoho One. Client Script

        Hi, I would like to know if the Client Script feature is available in Zoho One. If it's, how can I enable it?

      • Calendar View for Zoho Tickets

        Is there a way to view your tickets with due dates on a calendar view? I can not find a way to merge my Zoho Calendar and Tickets. This would be extremely helpful to my team.

      • Delete / Modify Default Career Site - Zoho Recruit

        Hello, It would be very useful if we could delete a default career site or change which of our career site is the default. Our Career site was created when there were issues with Zoho Recruit creating English CTA buttons on French Career sites. The only

      • Workflows for Timesheet

        Good day, Any way to have timesheet as triggers? I looked into Zoho Flow and into Zoho Project automation but no where can I have timesheet as a trigger. Basically, I would like to trigger something upon timesheet approval. Right now, the only way to

      • Is it possible to hide Developer Space for all user in Zoho Projects

        Hello! I am Zoho admin in a company and we want to use Zoho Project to manage projects, but after a few days of testing we are not able to "hide" the Developer Space from all kind of users except the admin. To sum up, I want to hide this for all users.

      • Introducing automation and utility conversations in WhatsApp marketing

        We’re excited to announce the addition of two new features to our WhatsApp integration: Automation and Utility conversations. These enhancements will allow you to streamline your marketing efforts and engage with your customers more effectively by automating

      • Extracting data from cells in zoho sheets for zoho books

        I am currently uploading my bank statment in excel format to zoho workdrive. I would like flow to extract certain data and send it to zoho books. Would scripting in zoho flow be able to help me with this? By this I mean should I attempt this in zoho flow

      • Within the Basic KPI component in Analytics, it is impossible to set "next" day range as a filter

        Hi there, I am currently setting up a deal dashboard for the Sales team. While it is possible to filter deal records to show records that were created LAST X days only, it looks like a NEXT X days Closing date filter is not available. Would it be possible

      • Pulling Specific Products from Sales Orders in Books to a CRM Record

        We currently process orders directly through our website (woocommerce) as well as through manual sales orders in zoho books. When an order comes through the website, all of the individual products from that order show up in the CRM record of that customer.

      • Você já viu os cursos do Zoho Mind?

        Pessoal, Tem uma plataforma da Zoho chamada Zoho Mind, muito interessante os cursos e vídeos tutoriais que lá possui. Para a turma do Zoho Creator, tem uma dica de Buscar dados em Formulário, segue o link e clique em Zoho Creator. https://www.zohomind.com.br/#/videostutoriais

      • Como gerar gatilhos para pagamento de impostos no Zoho Books?

        Olá Pessoal, boa tarde! Gostaria de saber como vocês estão escriturando os impostos a pagar no Zoho Books. Vi que temos a opção de Bills, porém se eu escriturar nesta aba do Zoho Books para gerar lembretes de tempo de vencimento por exemplo vai refletir

      • Subform Time field to string.

        Good afternoon All. I have a Subform 'Delivery_Receiving_Hours' that captures Day (Dropdown), Time_Open (Time), and Time_Close (Time). I need to capture this data and send it to a multiline field in the CRM. The code, posted below, below will capture

      • workflow for bounced email gets triggered, but email is status = opened

        Hello, I have a workflow that sends me an email if outgoing email are bounced. Now I got some kind of this emails, but the corrosponding contacts have status = open at the email. Why this bounce-workflow is triggered? Reports > Email Reports > Bounce

      • Data export

        I need to export our customer's data and projects' data for our purpose but am unable to export full data i only get around 3160 projects and around 2k customer can you please help me to get full data, please

      • Adjusting Physical Inventory

        Not getting very far with support on this one, they say they are going to fix it but nothings happened since November. Please give this a thumbs up if you would like to see this feature or comment if you have some insight. Use Case: Inventory set to be

      • Next Page