Creating Your Own Filtering Sheet

[RDSProgrammer]

Does anyone know of a good example, web page, book, etc., that can describe how to build a custom filtering interface on an Excel sheet.

We have a bunch of entry-level spreadsheet users and would like to provide a worksheet within the workbook that can present some drop-down lists (using lists) that can then build the advanced filter behind the scenes (using no VBA--we also have to support OpenOffice) and then present the results on another sheet (or on the same sheet below the drop-downs). We don't want to use the built-in filtering dialogs, advanced filtering that requires typing, etc.

Our data (mixed types) is laid out in database format on another sheet.

Since I can't use our proprietary data, a good example would be a sheet containing baseball player stats, such as name, league, team, position, average, hits, etc.

I would like to build a sheet that had drop-downs for league, team, name, and position and then show the results.

Right now, I'm not sure how to do this given our constraints above.

[Leith Ross]

Hello RDSProgrammer,

Do you realize that you have eliminated all possible programming methods for this task?

Sincerely,
Leith Ross

[RDSProgrammer]

I thought it might be possible to use a series of cascading drop-down lists which populated a hidden advanced filter criteria row on another sheet, which then displayed the results of that filter.

Is that possible?

[royUK]

You would need to use VBA, but this would not work with Open Office.

[RDSProgrammer]

Maybe I'm phrasing the question wrong, but isn't this a common issue for Excel spreadsheet developers who want to provide a separate sheet for UI, such as described by Abdulezer in 'Excel Best Practices'?