Tutorial Playlist
68 Lessons1. Excel Tutorial
2. Excel Worksheet for Practice
3. Google Sheets Vs. Excel
4. Excel Shortcut Keys
5. Excel Keyboard Shortcuts
6. Excel AutoSum Shortcut
7. Redo Shortcut in Excel
8. Charts in Excel
9. Pivot Charts in Excel
10. Excel Sum Formula
11. Excel Percentage Formula
12. Excel Age Calculation Formula
13. Excel Range Formula
14. Round Off Formula in Excel
15. VLOOKUP Formula in Excel
16. Excel Transpose Formula
17. Average Equation in Excel
18. How to Use DATEDIF Formula in Excel
19. IRR Formula in Excel
20. Standard Deviation Formula
21. Excel Age Calculation Formula
22. Excel MAX Function
23. Excel LEFT Function
24. Excel RIGHT Function
25. Trim Function In Excel
26. LookUp function in Excel
27. Columns in Excel
28. How To Sort Data In Excel
29. How To Freeze Panes in Excel
30. Page Setup in Excel
31. How to Recover an Unsaved Excel File
32. Concatenate in Excel
33. Count In Excel
34. IF Condition In Excel
35. H LOOK UP in Excel
36. How Do You Move Columns in Excel
37. Split Cells in Excel
38. Remove Blank Rows in Excel
39. How To Lock Cells in Excel
40. Data Validation in Excel
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41. How to Insert Checkbox in Excel
42. How To Highlight Duplicates in Excel
43. Fill Series in Excel
44. How to Create Excel Drop-Down List
45. What-If Analysis in Excel
46. How to Use SUMIFS Function in Excel
47. INDIRECT Function in Excel
48. Pivot Table in Excel
49. Slicers in Excel
50. How to Create a Dashboard in Excel
51. Excel Data Cleaning
52. Data Analysis In Excel
53. Goal Seek in Excel
54. Solver in Excel
55. Power Query in Excel
56. Macros In Excel
57. How To Make Graph in Excel
58. How To Make Histogram In Excel
59. How To Convert PDF to Excel Without Software
60. Barcode Font For Excel
61. Gantt Chart in Excel
62. Excel RANK function
63. AND Function in Excel
64. How to Calculate NPV
65. Format Painter in Excel
66. Count Colored Cells in Excel
67. Amortization Schedule in Excel
68. Master Cell References in Excel
Data validation in Excel is a readily available method that helps ensure data integrity when creating a financial model. The uses of data validation in Excel help secure your model’s inputs and outputs.
In this tutorial, I’ll take you through the definition of data validation in Excel, its uses, how to apply it, and the various challenges of using data validation in Excel.
Source- Career Principles
As a small business owner, data validation in Excel is an amazing feature that has helped me maintain data quality as it checks for complete, consistent data in my business.
Let us take a better look at when you can use data validation in Excel to your advantage as a beginner.
If you’re a small business owner like me, you’re very likely to use data validation in Excel, and it is important to remember that even the smallest of errors in data can lead to the biggest of issues.
For example, assume you're working with a team, and a team member enters wrong information on an important spreadsheet, and it ends up ruining your data collection. This is where restricting data entry on specific cells comes in handy!
You can control access to the spreadsheet, only allowing qualified individuals to input data. This helps in reducing the possibility of confused team members inputting irrelevant information.
You can use data validation in Excel to produce a warning that appears if a team member enters data that is outside of the allowed range. This warning tells the team member that their input does not comply with your set requirements, but it does not prevent them from inputting incorrect information.
This feature allows you to enter various data in cells if necessary, but it also alerts users to the fact that certain information belongs to particular cells.
If you want to be more efficient, you should learn more about Excel to improve your skills.
You can use data validation in Excel to ensure you and your team members can only enter data under your intended format. Uniform formatting polishes your spreadsheet and makes the data easier to read.
Suppose you have an Excel sheet that needs to be filled up by your staff with the birthdays of your team members. You can add data validation in Excel presets as you see fit, for example, you can set the format as month, day, and year (01/16/2024) or day, month, and year (16/01/2024), whichever you prefer.
You can prevent your team members’ errors by using the data validation in Excel drop down list to set a drop-down list of suitable inputs for the spreadsheet. This way, you can set specific rules when you’re collecting data and want to set the inputs to a few choices.
Now that you have a grasp on when to use data validation in Excel, you should know that data validation in Excel will help you if you’re particularly interested in Data Analysis. With that said, let’s see how you can apply it.
To start, choose the cells where you want to apply the rule by clicking within a cell, selecting a row or column by clicking the numbers or letters on the side or top of the worksheet, or select all cells using the Select All button in the upper-left corner of your Excel sheet.
Select the Data tab first, then click the Data Validation button. The Data Validation dialog box will open when you choose Data Validation from the drop-down menu.
Select the tab for Settings. Click the data validation drop-down list in the text field under Validation Criteria. You will be presented with a selection of validation choices. Select the most effective option for your spreadsheet.
Here’s a list of the options and what they mean:
Once you've decided how to sort your data, you'll need to specify the criteria for your input. This sets what range of inputs you will accept. Click the drop-down menu under Data to get a list of parameters and select the best option.
For example, the "Lists" criteria don't involve specifying a range of values because users choose from predefined responses.
Next, you can enter any further data that Excel requires to finish your rule. Depending on your criteria, the kind of data you enter may vary. if you pick "Text length" as your criteria and "Equal to" as your condition, you'll need to provide the exact length that the text should be for it to be considered valid
When a user clicks on a cell with a data validation rule, an input message appears to help them enter an appropriate value. You can go to the Input Message tab in the dialog box to add a custom input message. Enter the desired input message and a title for it.
You have to tick the box next to "Show input message when cell selected" for your message to appear. This option is pre-chosen in some cases.
If a user enters data into your spreadsheet that isn't acceptable, an error message will appear. Enter your custom alert by clicking the Error Alert tab. Error alerts are also optional, much like input messages.
When you’re done setting the presets and error message, click OK to activate it.
As great as data validation is, it comes with specific challenges that might prevent some users from implementing it. Let’s take a look at these challenges and how you can deal with them:
Let us take a look at the pros and cons of using data validation in Excel:
Challenges | Solutions |
---|---|
It can take a while to manually validate data format, particularly for large datasets. The time required may be decreased by sampling the data. | You can apply data sampling strategies. to accelerate validation procedures, |
Data dispersed over several databases within the project could make data validation difficult. | You can centralize your data sources for simpler validation by implementing comprehensive data integration alternatives. |
Validating datasets with few columns could seem easy at first, but as the number of columns rises, the work becomes more difficult. | You can use scripts or automation tools to make validation work easier for datasets with lots of columns. |
Now that you know what data validation in Excel is, you agree with me when I say data validation is an important feature for ensuring data integrity and accuracy in financial models and business operations. Without data validation, there would be tons of inaccurate data in your business model.
Want to learn more about data validation in Excel or Excel just in general? Why not visit upGrad? Come check us out and learn more about Excel through our online courses and blogs.
The three key steps to data validation in Excel include determining your data through a data sample, validating your database, and validating your data format.
To create a drop-down menu in Excel, start by selecting the cells where you want the drop-down to appear. Then, navigate to the "Data" tab on the Ribbon and click on "Data Validation." In the dialog box that appears, choose "List" from the "Allow" dropdown menu. Next, in the "Source" field, enter the options you want to appear in the drop-down list, separated by commas. Finally, click "OK" to apply the drop-down menu to the selected cells.
Data validation in Excel is a feature used to restrict input on a worksheet. You can check out the various online tutorials to learn more about Excel and data validation.
To add items to a Data Validation list in Excel, select the desired cell or range, go to the "Data" tab, click "Data Validation" in the "Data Tools" group, choose "List" from the "Allow" drop-down menu in the Data Validation dialog box, enter the list of items in the "Source" field, and click "OK".
I have added a detailed step-by-step process to do so in this tutorial.
Navigate to the Ribbon's Data tab and choose Data Validation. Choose “List” from the Allow box on the Settings tab. If it's acceptable for users to leave the cell unchecked, use the Ignore blank option. Verify the In-cell drop-down menu.
Devesh
Passionate about Transforming Data into Actionable Insights through Analytics, with over 3+ years of experience working in Data Analytics, Data V…Read More
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upGrad does not grant credit; credits are granted, accepted or transferred at the sole discretion of the relevant educational institution offering the diploma or degree. We advise you to enquire further regarding the suitability of this program for your academic, professional requirements and job prospects before enr...