excel - hide formula for easier input

Question

I have a cell formula that's working mixing both text and an If statement, example:
="USER_INPUT" & IF(F2="Asia/Singapore","+08:00","+02:00")
output: USER_INPUT+8:00
I'm not the one that will use this formula so I'd like to avoid having the user to search for the "USER_INPUT" in the whole formula in order to prevent mistakes.

Is it possible for the user just to type whatever he want in the cell wihout having the whole formula behind? example of cell input I want:

="USER_INPUT" & formula

Answer 1

Is there any reason why the cell containing this formula cannot be in another location which the user does not need to edit? So I am suggesting that you have a highlighted cell somewhere for user input (say G2 for the sake of argument), and then in another cell you have the following formula:

=G2 & IF(F2="Asia/Singapore","+08:00","+02:00")

Your display cell can then refer to the cell containing the above formula. You could even take things a step further and lock the cells which contain the actual formulas, to make sure your users don't accidentally change them. Follow the link below for information on how to do that.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-sg/help/214081/xl-how-to-lock-individual-cells-in-a-worksheet