multiple value returned from vlookup into a data validation list

[myobreportguru]

I found the following answer to another thread and it worked beautifully,

=OFFSET($B$1,MATCH($E$2,$A$1:$A$8,0)-1,,COUNTIF($A$2:$A$8,$E$2))

Here is the link to the earlier thread,

http://www.excelforum.com/excel-gene...tion-list.html

My question is that the above formula works on sorted data only, can this formula be modified to work on unsorted data?

Thanks in advance.

[kvsrinivasamurthy]

Pl see the attached file.

[myobreportguru]

There's always a way. Thanks very much.