Cascading drop-down data validation lists with only unique items.

[Another Jon]

Here is a gross over-simplification of my dataset in Excel (it's larger and more purposeful than this). It's in a table, at this point with quite a few more columns and vastly more rows.

<code style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 12px;">**Type**,**Creator**,**Name**,**Characteristic**
Animal,Frankenstein,Cat,Aloof
Animal,Frankenstein,Dog,Awoof
Animal,David Warner,Newt,Slimy
Animal,David Warner,Slug,Slimy
Not_Animal,David Warmer,Laster,Pew-Pew
Not_Animal,David Warner,Computer,Calculon
Not_Animal,No One,Nothingness,Void</code>

Wihin excel, I am trying to make cascading lists that are driving me a bit mad.

I need to present only the unique values in each cascading drop-down list.

For instance, Choice 1 would be "Animal or Not_Animal" derived from Type. Assuming a user chose "Animal", the next drop down he would be presented with "Frankenstein" or "David Warner", not "No One". Finally, on a third drop-down if he previously "Frankenstein", he could choose "Dog" or "Cat" and would not see "Laser", "Computer", nor "Nothingness". And I'd autopopulate the other another cel with the Characteristic.

I'm struggling to derive the unique options, Animal or Not_Animal, followed by the subsequent unique data set to present to the user. I've been mostly working with Names and Formulas, and, considering nothing has come close to working, I don't know if it's worth cluttering this message with my abysmal failures.

I can certainly get Type into a pivot table of unique values, and the same for Creator. I can reference Type into a list, but can't seem to get a correlation between Creator to go with it (it comes up empty), using =INDIRECT and simply the name of a function I created.

Thanks for any help!

 

[Smitty]

Welcome to the Board!

Take a look at Excel MVP Debra Dalgleish's site in the Data Validation section: www.contextures.com