Conditional Formatting an Excel Sheet Tab Based on Value in a Cell From a Formula

Question

I am not a VBA code writer by any stretch of the imagination, but I was trying to dabble in the following:

The goal: Make a sheet tab color turn green when cell B3 = Complete or it turns yellow if cell B3 = Open.

The "problem": Cell B3 has a formula:=IF(SUM(B6:B8)=0,"Complete","Open").

I tried using the code below (found it from a search) and modified it a little to what I needed. Left the "Case Else" section in it just not to mess with the code too much and figured only the first 2 conditions were ever going to be met anyway.

It works, but only when you manually type "Complete" or "Open" in cell B3 as the value. I want to keep the formula, but the code sees the formula and not the value of the formula. After much reading and trying to understand VBA, maybe I need Worksheet_Calculate() somewhere?

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
'Updateby Extendoffice
    If Target.Address = "$B$3" Then
        Select Case Target.Value`your text`
        Case "Open"
            Me.Tab.Color = vbYellow
        Case "Complete"
            Me.Tab.Color = vbGreen
        Case Else
            Me.Tab.Color = vbBlue
        End Select
    End If
End Sub
        

Answer 1

As far as I know, you can't do this.

The Worksheet_Calculate event IS fired when the cell with the formula updates but there is no way to check if the event was triggered by the cell you are interested in or something else entirely.

What you might be able to do instead, is look into what caused the cell to update in the first place and check for that.

What @TimWilliams might be hinting at with his comment is that you could do something like this:

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
    Dim checkRange As Range
    Set checkRange = Range("B6:B8")
    
    If Not Application.Intersect(checkRange, Target) Is Nothing Then
        If range("B3").Value = "Complete" Then
            Me.Tab.Color = vbGreen
        Else
            Me.Tab.Color = vbYellow
        End If
        
    End If
End Sub

But this will only work when the cells in B6-B8 range are changed manually.

You could also just do:

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
    If Range("B3").Value = "Complete" Then
        Me.Tab.Color = vbGreen
    Else
        Me.Tab.Color = vbYellow
    End If
End Sub

This will update the tab color every time anything changes on the sheet, not just B3 or B6:B8.

Answer 2

You could do this:

Private Sub Worksheet_Calculate()
    With Me.Range("B3").DisplayFormat
        If .Interior.ColorIndex = xlNone Then
            Me.Tab.ColorIndex = xlColorIndexNone
        Else
            Me.Tab.Color = .Interior.Color
        End If
    End With
End Sub

The tab color will follow the cell's fill color (or clear if there is no CF-applied fill)