Multiple, triggerable, variables per cel

[CorCordium]

Hi. I'm trying to build myself a sort of 'early warning' system for a schedule of events.

This is calendar based.

I've designed a linear calendar in Excel with one cel representing one day horizontally. 365 cels (theoretically) across.

The idea is if I enter a set command in a certain day, that needs to trigger another command in a cel, say 20 days before this first cel command.

Example: I enter 'ship date' into the Sept. 4 cel. By entering 'ship date', which would be one of 5 different variable commands within each of the 365 cels, that command would 'look' 20 days back to Aug 14 and show something like 'final production'.

THEN,... 'if' Aug 14 (final production) is triggered by a 'ship date' command, 'then' it in turn would 'look' back another 20 days and trigger yet a third cel to read something like 'approvals'... and so on for another 2 or three stages of a products development/approval process.

Essentially, it's a linear scheduler calendar with each cel loaded with 5 different triggers to show 5 different messages or alerts.

This is a long road to the question of how or can I program multiple, triggerable, variables per cel?

I'm still kinda new to Excel so be gentle if this is a pie in the sky request.
Thanks in advance for any insight.

[MarkVMcCullagh]

From memory there are only 255 Columns in Excel 2000 so your calendar will be curtailed if I have understood you correctly

[tusharm]

You can do what you want. However, you might be reinventing the wheel, not to mention running into hard XL limits because of the design.

First of all, you should look at readymade solutions that do what you want -- expandable Bill of Materials (or a MRP) is nothing new, as I'm sure you are aware.

Second, if you want to build your own in XL, you should look into designing a proper system. Research what others have done, how a relational database is designed, how a BOM fits into a database, and how a schedule fits into the same database.

Implementing a decent MRP system is far from a trivial proposition. Getting people to use it and not game the system are two other reasons why most MRPs have failed to live up to their marketing hype.

[CorCordium]

Thanks for the advise. Any recommedations on ready made solutions?

I'm kinda new at this so I could so pointers.

Also, this thing I've described is for me only. No one else will be using it, thus it can be really primitive, just a timeline tracker really.

I used FileMaker years ago and it did essentially what I'm looking to do, but not in a linear, horizontal timeline formatt.

Thanks for any more details on how to code each cel and test this.

Best,
Frank