Show next non consecutive number in a column

[Noob80]

New to excel, forgive my ignorance. I'm making a log entry spreadsheet for work. Each log entry has a specific number assigned to it. The data is separated by areas of the plant. When I make a new log entry I have to manually scroll through the entire sheet and find the next available number to make my new log entry. The numbers are not sequential in my column since they are broken up into different sections. So the best way I can describe it is I want to find out what the next available number is in a column of numbers that are not consecutive.

 

[jimrward]

Firstly welcome
secondly can you expand a bit and provide more information
does each plant area have its own numbering
can you provide a sample log number so we can see the format

 

[Noob80]

Thank you for the warm welcome,
I'm sure you will laugh at my simplicity but I attached a screen shot of what my workbook looks like. I have each area of the plant broken up into sections of rows. The top section is called Press and the next section is called M1

 

[jimrward]

Ok I wasn’t sure if you had for instance press_001, press_002, m1_001 etc

 

[jimrward]

ok to avoid getting what they call circular references and also assuming you want to add randomly in each section you could add in a small helper maybe tagged on to the Log Number header
so in B1 have ="Log Number " & MAX($B$3:B200)

 

[Noob80]

That's Sweet! You are the man Jim. Thank you so much! I'm just breaking myself in on excel so this is exciting.

 

[jimrward]

It’s only one solution of many
something to keep in mind is make sure that wherever you put the count it’s outside of the $B$3:B200 range otherwise you will get circular references error