I'm not sure if this is beyond the scope of excel. I have a website that users select one of a few hundred text string options from. These are then exported to a spreadsheet, where each has different unique values that change on a weekly basis. I then need to take these unique numerical values that constantly change and assign one unique value to each of the text strings.

For example:

A user selects A, B, C, and D as the strings. Their respective values are 3, 4, 5, 6 currently. However, I need to add the new values to increase their total while retaining their individual difference for that week. That part is simple enough. The problem arises when you have 1,000 users who can select A, B, C, D or Z, B, T, M or any combination. Is the only option to assign values to sort by the user's selection and add the new value that way? Essentially sort everyone that has selected A and assign a value, then everyone who has selected B and assign a value, so on and so forth?