I currently have two separate combo boxes created by using data validation. The first combo box selects one of 35 divisions of items. The second combo box then only shows the items that fall within the division that is selected in the first combo box.

I'm not sure if I'm using the best method to accomplish that, but it seems to work just fine. What I need to do now is to somehow filter the results that show up in that second combo box by another criteria other than just the division that is selected in the first combo box.

The total amount of data that makes up all 35 divisions is 7,314 rows long. In reality, we will only regularly use a fraction of that data, maybe 200-500 rows on a regular basis. I don't want to delete the rows that we don't normally use, because every once in a while we will want to use that data, just not very often.

What I would like to do is add an additional column to each of my 7,314 rows where I could identify whether or not that row was "preferred", by having that cell contain an "x", "p", or "1", etc. Then I would like to somehow filter the results of my second combo box to either show me "all" results, or just "preferred" results. We would normally filter the results to "preferred", but then when we needed access to an item we don't usually use, it would be available to us by removing the "preferred" filter.

I don't want to make this post too long, but in case you need to know the current methods I'm using, I will explain them below.

My first combo box is based on a data validation list. That list is the first column of a table which contains the names of all 35 divisions. The second column of that table contains the corresponding names for the named ranges to be used for the second combo box. For instance, the named range for Division 01 is SheetName!A2:A255. So when Division 01 is selected in the first combo box, my second combo box displays all the names in SheetName!A2:A255.

I would like to have an option button group or an additional combo box that I could use to further filter the results to show just my "preferred" items. So instead of showing me all 254 names contained withing Division 01, it would show me only those 10-20 names whos "preferred" column have been flagged with an "x", "p", or "1", etc.

It's OK if I need to scrap my current methods and start over in order to accomplish this, so if there is a better way of going about this that the road I'm on, that's perfectly OK. The same goes for my idea of adding that "preferred" column, if there is a better way to somehow "flag", or "tag" a particular row as being "preferred" that's fine.

Thanks, Spence

Using Excel 2007