Something more robust than Data Validation for Lists?

[Jimbo123456]

I have been tasked with creating a workbook where a user will select options from various drop down lists and this creates a final price for the "build". This was proposed to be solved by using Data Validation and Lists for each drop down option. However past experience tells me that this is prone to go wrong over time and additionally it is not obvious that a drop down menu resides inside the cell until the user clicks on it.

Is there a more robust, modern way to create drop down menus or in other way achieve what I want?

Happy to reformat the "option list" data to facilitate what ever is the best user experience for drop down menus.

[torachan]

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Seeing a workbook makes optimising an answer easier.

[Jimbo123456]

Here is a very simple example.

Ideally the lists and the user facing drop down lists would be on different sheets. But I am curious if Data Validation is the best way to do this.

[jeffreybrown]

No, not really. You could probably go nuts and get fancy, but this data validation technique is just fine.

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You would need to describe in more detail in your experience has gone wrong. Only thing I could suggest is you make these dynamic arrays or even better, tables. That way if you add anything to the List, it will automatically update with the DV

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Place a color on the DV and tell users input is required in the shaded cells.