Data Entry Strategies to maintain integrity of formating

Hello,

This question may have been answered before, I have looked for answers but haven't found what I'm looking for. I'm open to any suggestions or links that anyone may have. My only caveat is that I'm in Cambodia and the internet is so slow, videos are out of the question.

Here's my scenario, I'm working in Cambodia to train the staff at the NGO I work at to enter data into a spreadsheet. I'm hoping to use a form that can be opened and the data entered, and that the data will end up in a spreadsheet. The deal is that must of the employees have very limited computer experience and English is their second language. I'm trying to use something simple that will allow the NGO to collect good records and make it easy on the staff to do the data entry. I'd like to try to keep the data entry staff out of the spreadsheet as much as possible to decrease the chances of erasing formulas in the sheets or overwriting existing data.

Basically we will be doing daily entry of a dozen new records with about 40 entries per record some will be numbers, some will be strings. I'd like the data entry staff to be able to open a document and enter data and save it. Then when the document is re-opened the fields are blank but the data from the previous entries are saved in the spreadsheet.

Am I asking a for a lot more functionality than there is a simple solution for?

Thanks, Jojo

I had a similar drama and came up with a data entry screen on one sheet of the workbook, which entered the information into a 'master' sheet, once the user clicked 'Enter' it would clear the cells and was ready for the next record.

The only down side was, it was for 1 person to enter so I didn't think to much about multiple people using it.

In your case, you could create a separate workbook with the input screen, that entered the information into another workbook.

Maybe attach a copy of the workbook you have so the good people here can have a play with.