Forum Discussion
Conditional Formatting Question
The answer to your question is ......
Let me ask you a question first: Is it possible for us to engage in a little spreadsheet re-design?
From the way you describe your current situation, you have different sheets based on what kinds of skills various individuals possess. So John Doe has SkillA, SkillD, SkillF and appears on each of those sheets, whereas Jane Smith, with SkillB and SkillE is on different sheets. And it sounds like you need to be able to produce reports that list those still "un-called" who are on any given Skill List.
From a data integrity point of view, if my surmising is correct, you are exposing yourself to potential problems by doing it this way. Just to take a trivial example, if Jane Smith and John Doe were to get married, and do so in the old-fashioned way where she becomes Jane Doe, are you forced to go through all the sheets where her name appears and update that single change multiple times? Or maybe they are more hip and both take the name Doe-Smith? Then you change both of their names?
What I'm getting at is this: good database design avoids redundancies, for the sake of improving data integrity. So I'm wondering if you can create a single Master Database, where each name appears only once, and then the various skills SkillA-SkillZ, instead of being accommodated by separate sheets, are accommodated by individual columns on that master database.
It still would be possible to list possessors of SkillM who haven't been called (and not show all the other irrelevant Skill Lists).... Excel has ways to accommodate your output needs without designing them into multiple lists.
So, back to your question: "Yes"
What you ask--a master column which could cause names to be grayed out--could be done.
But I truly think (granted, without seeing your current workbook) that you'd be better served by re-thinking the way you store and retrieve your data in the first place.
Is it possible to upload a sample of what you currently have, after first removing identifiable personal information? I (or somebody else) could show you then more specifically how you could accomplish your goal, and perhaps give specific suggestions on a better way to accomplish that goal.