Hello all!
I've been building out what is essentially a database to track information related to customer orders of a specific product. The product is essentially custom tailored firmware - specifically, automotive engine tuning files. Most of the information is provided by a customer through a form, some is manually input directly into the sheet on my end.
What I need is a way to quickly search the database to find rows that are similar, and some visual indicator of the "percentage match". So if Customer A selected options A, B, and C, and Customer B selected options A, B, and D, they would have a 66% "match".
Ultimately my goal is to speed up the firmware creation process by using matching (or at least very similar) files as a starting point, rather than starting from scratch for each new customer. This ability should significantly reduce the amount of time we have to spend creating new files for customers.
I should clarify - I do realize that this can be done by using the filters to just narrow down columns until I find the closest combination - but that process will likely take longer than it would to just create a new file for each customer.
In the image below, lines 118 and 236 would be exact matches. The columns for ROM ID, Year, Model, Transmission, Intake, Headers, Catalytic Converters, and Injectors all match. Being able to type in the order number from line 118 and have a filtered list of results with line 236 being at the top of that list is what I'm looking for.
Where do I start? Is this even possible? I've thought about trying to use a Form as the "input" and then setting up a Workflow that creates a Report each time an input is added. But that seems like a very roundabout way to approach the problem, and would require a lot of work just to determine if it is even feasible. I've also looked briefly at Sheet Summaries to see if that could help, but I couldn't really determine if that was a good option.
Any advice on a direction to take would be greatly appreciated. I am open to any ideas. Thanks!
-Tyler