Need help with displaying the data

[efedotyuk]

Hi there,

I believe that this might be a fairly easy task/question to some of you(Excel experts) but I'm not able to figure it out so wanted to hear your advice.

Here is what I'm planning to do:

I have 5 columns(Initiative > Task > Deadline > Status > Comment) and what I need is when I select a specific value in "Column-1(Initiative)" I want only specific tasks to be displayed in "Column-2(Task)". After that, I can manually update "Column-3(Deadline)" column with required timelines and then manually update "Column-4(Status)" column. Additionally, for "Column-4(Status)" I'm going to apply "conditional formatting" so then with a specific status I would see a respective color there.

My struggle is the following:

I can't figure out on what function in Excel I need to use in order to be able to select a specific value(word) from "Column-1(Initiative)" so then "Column-2(Tasks)" will automatically show only those values(tasks) which associated with that specific "Initiative" from Column-1.

So as an example from Excel:

I select a specific value in "A2" so then "B2", "B3", "B4" and "B5" will show only "linked" values to that specific "initiative" selected in "A2". So when I will select another value from that "A2"(drop-down list) then "B2", "B3", "B4" and "B5" will show different "linked" values respectively.

What I have tried so far to make it work:

1) Data validation;
2) Conditional formatting;
3) IF function(but I think that I used it incorrectly...)

Thank you so much in advance for any advice or help with this!

 

[C with no eyes]