Forum Discussion
My data validation isn't working in Excel 365. I guess there's a bug.
- Jan 18, 2020
Allow me to say that it's amazing that the drop-downs worked at all (even sometimes). Downloaded your schedule and experienced the same problems. Your formulae can be easily avoided if you assign Named Ranges to your data validation lists. The Data Validation formula can then be as simple as "=indirect(cell)". I've reworked your schedule in the first 15 rows of the "Expenses" sheet to demonstrate how this works. First, I removed all your data validation and re-entered ones based on Named Ranges for the second level drop-downs. I expect that these will work all the time. Just be ware that Named Ranges only accept letters and underscores ("_"). But I'd rather use that than overly complex formulae that try to mimic the same functionality but don't work properly.
My guess that is combination of performance and errors in validation formulas (if referenced cell in column to the left is empty formula returns an error). Mainly performance.
Agree with Riny_van_Eekelen , it's better to rebuild the model.