A thousand items to choose from - can I create categories to simplify data validation?

I currently have data validation to control the input for cells in a column. However the number of valid data items will grow to over a thousand. To make it easier to find and select any item, I’d like to categorise the items and have just a list of categories in the first dropdown, where selecting a category then populates the data validation dropdown with the data items in that category.

Has anyone got suggestions how I could accomplish this?

Hello @adam42
Do I understand it right that in your scenario you used ‘List’ parameter in Data validation and list source contains many items (so drop-down menu looks endless) ?
Please confirm that I understood the situation right.

Yes, this is the dialog box: image
The “SourceItems” is a named range. I use the chosen item from the data validation to do a vlookup and obtain a value.

It’s the SourceItems that will grow very large. I want to categorise it to create a smaller list of categories that can be used to pre-select a category of SourceItems to choose from for the data validation.

Thank you for your description. We are checking the situation.

Hello @adam42
We have checked the situation and we added your request to internal tracksystem (internal number 57176).
Unfortunately, there’s no way to achieve your desired scenario at the moment, but we already have started working on it.

Hi Alexandre, thanks for taking it on board. Do you reference those internal tracking numbers in the release notes when you do a release?

Do you reference those internal tracking numbers in the release notes when you do a release?

Yes, you can see these internal numbers in changelogs: https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md
For example, Fix ability to review the document by anonymous users (Bug #59592)
Also I will update this thread when we release such feature.

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