I recently built a dynamic drop-down where the choices update automatically based on another field, using the INDIRECT and UNIQUE functions. Super useful for forms and making data entry foolproof.
Anyone else automate data validation for a smoother user experience?

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Can you share a sample?

I had a list of departments in one column and, in another, a list of specific team names that depended on the department.
To make the drop-down for “Team” only show the teams in the selected department, I created a named range for each department’s teams, then used INDIRECT in Data Validation (e.g., =INDIRECT(A2)).
Now, whenever someone picks a department in column A, column B’s drop-down only lists the right teams—no scrolling through irrelevant choices!

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I actually intend to make the same enhancement to one of my files.

I also use a similar approach when I have multiple cells that use the same validation list - create the list as a table then you just update the table and don't have to worry about changing all the individual validation ranges in each location

Bravo! Good luck

Very cool. I just used validation for drop-down menu on ranges used for visualizations, just to remove some risk of the viz breaking if someone who doesn't know my use cases is entering data. Definitely want to try your automation above or something similar next!

Love it keep it up!!

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