Prevent direct editing, but allow userform to update cell

Good day all,
I have a shared spreadsheet which is currently being used by about 7 people. The spreadsheet tracks a growing list of records we obtain from another system, but will always be limited to a maximum of 15000 rows.

Every day, I obtain a text file, which I import to the spreadsheet, and compare the existing data from the newly obtained. The macro appends anything new, and modifies records for those which are on both the spreadsheet and the text file. The users then review the new items (and some of the modified) and enter a value in column C.

My issue is that my macro depends on consistent data entry in that column. I have it set up now so that when a user double clicks on any row in column C, they get a pop up userform with several options. They choose the option and click an OK button, and their value gets logged on the sheet.

They all prefer this to using a combo box/drop down.

The problem is, one of the people consistently enters her own data, then complains that the macro doesn't pick up her updates correctly.

Is there an easy way to block such direct cell editing, while allowing the data from the userform to be applied? I think I could add something to the double click to unlock the cell, add the update, then relock it, but am not sure if that's the most efficient...

Thanks!
JP

JP,

I would protect the sheet (have all cells locked) so that the only way to enter information is to double click and use the userform. The double-click event can be in the ThisWorkbook event module:

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And then in the userform, you would have the sheets.unprotect in the initialize and the sheet.protect in the terminate events:

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Alternatively, you could alter whatever userform sub actually enters the information (like a command button click) to have the sheet.unprotect at the beginning of its code and the sheet.protect at the end of its code so that the .unprotect and .protect isn't split up:

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