Forum Discussion
Auto Fill rows
Hello! I'm pretty new to excel and I just started working for a construction company, and they want to make a spreadsheet for all of the materials they use. They want the spreadsheet to auto fill in entire rows of data. For example say one of the columns is the "Part numbers" and below it I start typing a part number and it brings up the list of all of the part numbers that start with say "4568..." and once I select that part number, it fills in the rest of the row with the price, description, vendor, etc. Is this at all possible? I've done lots of research and can't find any solution for it.
Please see attached.
15 Replies
- It is indeed possible.
You'd need a table somewhere that has all that information, preferably a separate sheet in the same workbook that you're working in.
Second, you'd make use of the VLOOKUP function to retrieve information based on the part number you've entered.
Now, there are other ways to make that work as well.
Before we go further, is there such an inventory or catalog of all the parts they've used or could use? If so, is it possible to upload a sample of it....just a representative list, not the whole thing.
I'm presuming what YOU are being asked to do, then, is create a project-specific spreadsheet that can then be used to be part of an estimate of what this project is going to cost...etc. Is that right? That is to say, you (or somebody) will be adding info on, say, the QUANTITY of each part that will be needed, perhaps DATES when they'll be needed, etc. Right?
It would help--this is what I'm getting at--if you could describe a bit more fully the context in which you're being asked to create this spreadsheet. Where does it fit in a bigger process?
But to your basic question: "YES!" that kind of retrieval of information is quite easy (assuming, of course, that the information is available at hand in some other computerized form)Yes there is an inventory of parts that they already have ! It's all listed out in the way that they want, but it doesn't have the functionality they want (The auto fill). So how it fits into the bigger process is that when the company is bidding on a job and this spreadsheet will be used to fill in the quantity of the parts required, price etc, so they know what they need and they need a more efficient system of doing this. Most of the people that are filling in the spreadsheet don't know what part # goes with what type of part it is. So the reason for this is so they can say look up the description if they don't know the part number and it will auto fill the part # etc., then they can put the quantity. It's not necessarily project specific, rather more of a template to use for every project that we bid on to make the process easier. I attached an example of a couple of different parts, and their description if that helps! Also thank you so much for taking the time to help me out! I was wandering aimlessly looking for the solution to this. mathetes
Please see attached.
