Conditional Formatting based on Now formula

I'm hoping for some help with using conditional formatting on cells that include the Now() date formula.

My attached spreadsheet is for tracking when certain tasks were completed on each case and figuring the number of days that it takes to complete these tasks.

The task I am needing help in formatting is the Corrections Received field (column E). We need to track the cases that do not have corrections received within 7 days of the changes being requested (Out for Corrections, column D). The issue is that there would not usually be a date entered in the Corrections Received column when we need to look at those cases...because they would not be received yet. In order to not get an extreme default value (like the -40181 or 40922), I entered the =Now() function in column E (except for first case as an example of what this would look like otherwise).

What I was hoping to be able to do is use conditional formatting to look for that Now() formula. If the formula is present, the cell would be highlighted. If a date were entered, even if it was today's date, the fill on that cell would be removed. That way we could tell when the displayed date is a true date and when it is a placeholder until we receive the information.

Currently, it either highlights no matter what the cell includes or it doesn't highlight anything...

Hope that makes sense... And if there is a better way to capture this same information, I would be Very Happy to learn!

I would dispense with the place holder. It is a volatile function and forces Excel recalculation each time a change is made in the sheet.

Try this formula used in Conditional Formatting in column-E
=AND(E2="",TODAY()-D2>=7)

The cell will highlight if there is not date in column-E and lapsed time since "Out for Correction" is greater than or equal to 7.

Note: the TODAY function is also volatile but because it is used in Conditional Formatting and not directly in the worksheet, I'm not sure if its volatility affects anything.

Glad to be of help.

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