Match using two values

[Evalis]

I swear to god I'm going to punch a hole into my computer screen is excel doesn't get it's act together and start including some logic as to why it's messing up.

So first of all I have a match formula written to locate rows with unique identifiers as: Cellx&Celly, Rangex&Rangey and it refuses to recognize when the cells change, or rather it 'sometimes' recognizes it and other times maintains it's stubborn behavior. If it always changed or always didn't change maybe I could reason what was happening, but it's just.. making me crazy.

The second problem I'm running into is that the drop down list WON'T IGNORE BLANKS, regardless if this is chosen as an option.

Of course this is minor since the real issue is that I can't maintain both a validation and a formula in the cell.. which I'll probably have to make a macro for annoyingly.. I've attached the file. Can someone explain to me why both of these things are making me consider shattered glass as a replacement computer screen?

None of the data is real.. not that I should have to mention it.. but yeah.

[daffodil11]

The MATCH function has an optional variable, similar to VLOOKUP.

Put a 0 at the end of the MATCH function to make sure you're consistently returning EXACT matches.

Are you trying to set up contingent dropdown menus, or do you just want to return the exact matches as dictated by prior choices?

If you're attempting to build dynamic dropdowns that reference choices already made, I recommend reading the second article in the tutorial below:

Dynamic Dropdowns

[Evalis]

The exact match, oy! That did it, thank you! And yes I'm making dynamic dropdowns, but making multiple extra columns and rows isn't viable since the data is 'mostly' unique and will essentially require an entirely separate table with duplicate information. The problem isn't so much that I can't get it to appear on the dropdown list (that already works), the issue is that I can't seem to get it to ignore blanks, but it's probably irrelevant since I'll need a macro to make it autopopulate AND function as a dropdown list.. I think.

[daffodil11]

The 'ignore blanks' feature means the validation will ignore a blank if the cell the validation is in. So, if you create a list for A1 but don't choose an option for A1, it doesn't yell at you.