What's your Best Error Checking Column Using Formula?

NeilKY

I have discovered multiple ways to create a error checking column that looks in all columns to see if there's a broken formula somewhere. However, all the ways I have found aren't very elegant and don't provide the type of details I want.

Example:

=IF(ISERROR([First Column in Sheet]@row:[Last Column in Sheet]@row), 1)

This works to be blank if I don't have any errors, but if there are errors, I get the kind of error in the result. Eg. "#BLOCKED" or "#UNPARSEABLE". etc.

It would be amazing to be able to identify all the errors in the columns. So if there's a #BLOCKED and an #UNPARSEABLE in the same row, it lists both side by side as the returned value. Or to somehow color the row using conditional formatting based on the type of error it is :)

Has anyone come up with a great formula they use to do better than this, that they would be willing to share? (Definitely something that uses a range instead of having to name individual columns, of course.)

Carson Penticuff

Is the column you are placing your formula into contained within the range of [First Column in Sheet]@row:[Last Column in Sheet]@row? If so, that will result in receiving an error if there is an error anywhere else. You can try moving the error proofing column to the last column on the sheet and not including that in the reference. If you need/want the error proofing column somewhere in the middle of the sheet, you can use an OR statement to check all column to the left and right of the error proofing column as two individual ranges. That would look something like this:

=IF(OR(ISERROR([First Column in Sheet]@row:[Column to the Left of Error Checking Column]@row), ISERROR([Column to the Right of Error Checking Column]@row:[Last Column in Sheet]@row)), 1, 0)

My very intentionally error-filled test sheet: