How to effectively assign many items to multiple categories

temporalnaut 

Hi Temp,

Without understanding how your category is input currently (by hand?), my initial thought is for you to set up individual columns for each category, desktop, microsoft, etc. Create as many columns as the maximum entry will use, then place a list using data validation in each cell of each column. Data validation will drag and drop. Go to each item and select their categories across the row, include a subcategory column and select the subcategory as well, and then concatenate them in the final "category" row in the format you described. For the data validation, you can create one list for the categories and one list for the subcategories. So using your example, if you created four columns, the first 3 with the categories listed, and the fourth with the sub-category listed, if the item was in cell b2, in cell "c2" you would select "desktops", in "d2" you would select "microsoft" etc. In the category column ("g2" in this ex.) you would have =concatenate(c2&", "&d2&", "&e2&" > "&f2). (You can also put the comma-space in a cell and reference it instead of writing it out). Also, putting the comma-space in its own cell gives you the option of an if statement to filter it out so you don't have something that looks like "desktops,,, >"