将单元格限制为输入特定数字范围的特定顺序

Question

Here's the scenario. I have in columns E6:E309 all the job numbers. I would like the sales person to come and type in the relative cell in D6:D309 which job is to be drawn first by typing in the range D6:D309 any number from 1 to 303. If a sales person entered in column D11 "1", that means that job number is E11 is to be cut first. The hard part is the following two conditions:

1st Condition: The first entry in any cell belonging to the range D6:309 should be number 1, the second is number 2, the third is number 3, and so on up till number 309. So, the sales person can not enter the number "2" in any cell belonging to D6:D309, unless the number "1" is entered somewhere else in any cell belonging to the range D6:D309 is entered, and so on.

2nd Condition: There's no specific order for which cells are entered before the other. The salesperson can start entering in any cell, per se D10 by entering "1", and then move to D18 where he can only enter "2", and then back to D3 where he can only enter "3", and so on.

Your help will be very much appreciated.

Answer 1

This can be done with some clever custom validations. To place a customer validation, select the cell(s) you want to apply this validation and then select Data->Data Validation. In the form under settings, select Custom in the "Allow" dropdown and enter the formula.

In detail, you'll need to following three validations:

1. Cell D6: =D6=(MAX($D$7:$D$309,0)+1)
2. Cells D7:D308 (make sure cell D7 is the active cell in the selection: =D7=(MAX($D$6:$D6,$D8:$D$309,0)+1)
3. Cell D309: =D309=(MAX($D$6:$D$308,0)+1)

If you want you can add a custom error message in the "Error Alert" tab to explain the logic to the user.

Be aware: While this solution fulfills your conditions, you'll run into problems the moment any entry is deleted! In this the validations still force the user to enter the next highest number, so the deleted number cannot be entered unless all other numbers above it have be deleted!

Answer 2

Following Worksheet_Change event should work. It does the following:

1) check whether entered value is a number if not display message and exit
2) check for correct number to be entered

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
    If Intersect(Target, Range("D6:D309")) Is Nothing Or Target.Cells.Count > 1 Then Exit Sub 'check for range

    Application.EnableEvents = False
    Dim countPrevNum As Long, largeNum As Long, currNum As Long

    If Not IsNumeric(Target.Value) Then     'check if entered value is number
        MsgBox "Enter a number"
        Target.Cells.Clear
        Target.Cells.Select
        Application.EnableEvents = True
        Exit Sub
    End If

    currNum = Target.Value      'value entered
    Target.Cells.Clear          'clear the target cell

    If WorksheetFunction.CountA(Range("D6:D309")) Then
        largeNum = WorksheetFunction.Large(Range("D6:D309"), 1)   'get the largest number in the range
    End If

    If largeNum <> currNum - 1 Then     'check if previous largest number is equal to currNum-1
        MsgBox "Number to be entered : " & largeNum + 1
        Target.Cells.Select         'select the target cell
    Else
        Target.Value = currNum      'enter the value target cell
    End If
    Application.EnableEvents = True
End Sub