I think I already know the answer to this, but I need independent
verification to defend a decision I made.

If you are validating a drop-down list from another Excel file, that file
must be open, correct?

Also--and I'm a bit unclear on this--if multiple users open workbooks that
reference the same external file for drop-down lists, the lists will not be
populated, correct.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Hi

Tried to test this
If you are validating a drop-down list from another Excel file, that file
must be open, correct?
Result - You may not use references to other worksheets or workbooks for
Data Validation criteria.

More than that I dont know


"RGBrasel" wrote:

I think I already know the answer to this, but I need independent
verification to defend a decision I made.

If you are validating a drop-down list from another Excel file, that file
must be open, correct?

Also--and I'm a bit unclear on this--if multiple users open workbooks that
reference the same external file for drop-down lists, the lists will not be
populated, correct.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

The trick is to maintain an image of the list in one workbook in the other
workbook.

Say we have a list in some sheet somewhere in b1.xls.
We copy it and paste/special link to a place in b2.xls.

Now the data validation will work on a cell in b2.xls
--
Gary''s Student - gsnu200731


"RGBrasel" wrote:

I think I already know the answer to this, but I need independent
verification to defend a decision I made.

If you are validating a drop-down list from another Excel file, that file
must be open, correct?

Also--and I'm a bit unclear on this--if multiple users open workbooks that
reference the same external file for drop-down lists, the lists will not be
populated, correct.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

I'm more worried about several workbooks that reference the same workbook.
Here's a breakdown of my project:

I've created several identical workbooks for project/time tracking. There
are two fields that must be drop-downs. The workbooks are on a network drive.

Now--what happens if multiple users open their workbooks simultaneously?
Will all workbooks have the correct data in the drop-down lists? Also, to
save the users the time of opening the workbook containing the data for the
lists, I created an autorun macro to open the file upon launch.

The problem I ran into was that opening up other users' workbooks worked
once--and then never again.

"Gary''s Student" wrote:

The trick is to maintain an image of the list in one workbook in the other
workbook.

Say we have a list in some sheet somewhere in b1.xls.
We copy it and paste/special link to a place in b2.xls.

Now the data validation will work on a cell in b2.xls
--
Gary''s Student - gsnu200731


"RGBrasel" wrote:

I think I already know the answer to this, but I need independent
verification to defend a decision I made.

If you are validating a drop-down list from another Excel file, that file
must be open, correct?

Also--and I'm a bit unclear on this--if multiple users open workbooks that
reference the same external file for drop-down lists, the lists will not be
populated, correct.

Thanks in advance for your advice!