Excel - grouping

Question

HI - I have to create a 'useful' list of all our project drawings.

There are main drawings of the whole assembly, that drawing will contain a list of drawings of parts in that assembly. Some of these drawings will also be assemblies, containing a list of drawings related to that part (and so on...) so I will end up with a massive tree of drawings sprouting from branches with twigs and a few leaves. Is there a way of doing this without getting too complicated?

It will also need to be a list that should transfer into Sage for accounting/ordering so needs to be structured.

To further complicate things there may be more than one revision of a drawing, so that needs to be captured too.

I started - using the 1st set of columns for the main drawing detail, then a 2nd set of columns for drawings in that set and so on, but whilst the theory of what I am doing works, it is 4 columns sets wide already and looks untidy.

Can I do the whole lot in just one column set?

Can you format levels of groups automatically?

Would it be better to have a list of all drawings, then group them almost in reverse?

Answer 1

sorry - the screenshots seem to have gone awol :(

Answer 2

Hi Sue,

Thanks for posting back and sharing the screenshots.

My understanding is that you want to make the drawings in the columns look tidy and in structure, you may try using cascading dropdown list and dependent dropdown list. Then you can make a selection from the dropdown list to show the associated value.

You may refer to the information and steps in this article. Hope for giving you a bit assistance.

Making a cascading (dependent) Excel drop down list

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Best Regards,

Tina

Answer 3

Hi Tina

Basically there is one main drawing of the completed item, DRG 2470 - this item will comprise of the parts shown in the drawings listed in 2470,

some of these drawings will also be made up of many items - each with a drawing - possibly even with another sub-assembly containing more information... and so on

I think rather than expanding across columns the drawings would be better in a single list/column, with each folder/heading formatted to be distinguishable from a single part drawing (ie: 2495-P4-MA-02-a) and grouped under that header.

Thanks for offering your help by the way 😊

Sue

Answer 4

Hi SueRaynor,

According to your description, it seems you want to create a list which contains drawings and group the list based on your needs.

To better understand the situation and help you, could you please share some related screenshots about

"I started - using the 1st set of columns for the main drawing detail, then a 2nd set of columns for drawings in that set and so on, but whilst the theory of what I am doing works, it is 4 columns sets wide already and looks untidy." ?

The screenshots will be helpful for us to understand the situation from your side. (You can mask the personal information in screenshots)

Best Regards,

Tina