Logical Formatting within a sheet

Antoinette Arcella

Just wondering if there is any possible way I can apply logical formatting within a sheet? ie I have several drop down columns and I want to be able to select one and the responses will be trigged within the other columns. If 'not yet started' is the option selected in the column titled 'stage' I want the response of 'low risk' to be automatically selected in the 'risk' column.

Andrée Starå

Hi @Antoinette Arcella

Yes, it’s possible.

You’d use one ore multiple IF function formulas.

Try something like this.

=IF(Stage@row = "not yet started", "low risk")

Did that work?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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Genevieve P.

Hi @Antoinette Arcella

What you're describing can be set up by using a formula in the "risk" column. You can build a nested IF statement to return different values (such as "Low Risk") based on other criteria in that row.

However, the way formulas work is that you can either have a formula in a cell to automatically output information, or you can manually change the data in that cell (but you can't have both). If you manually change a value in a cell that used to have a formula, this erases the formula behind it and so it won't change then as other elements in the row update. Does that make sense?

What this means is that you would want to build into your nested IF statement every possible outcome that you'd like to see, so that it all happens automatically as the other columns update. If you would like help creating this formula, I'm sure the Community can help you with this!

We would just need to know all of the criteria & values to be output (ex, when it's "not started", output "Low Risk". When it's "In progress" but the due date is in the past, "high risk", etc). It would also be helpful to see a screen capture of your sheet (but block out any sensitive data) so that we can look at your column names & types as this will affect the formula.

If you don't want to build a formula, another alternative would be to set up Conditional Formatting rules that change the cell's colour based on criteria in that row (see here).

Let me know if you have any questions about this!

Cheers,

Genevieve