Capture the first, second and third time date is entered in to t cell

[rewmason]

Hi All,

MS Office / Excel 2010 on Windows XP

Just signed up and first post so be gentle...... ;-)

I am relatively inexperienced with Excel and have spent quite a while trying to find out how to do the following:-


My spreadsheet will have a Cell, e.g. A1 which will have data (usually a number and it MAY or MAY NOT be suffixed with one letter from a possible 4 letters) put in to it from an external source over which I have no control.

The data input in to A1 will change dependant upon certain criteria that I have no control over.

After the first time data is put in to the Cell A1, it may stay there for ever or may change, I have no control over which.

Then, after some time, if certain external criteria (I have no control over) is met then the cell A1 will be cleared of data.

After the first time the above is done, it MAY or MAY NOT be the case that the process happens again but this time with different data but still input in to Cell A1.

Again, if certain external criteria are met, the second set of data may be cleared from the cell.

And again, the process could repeat.

Now, I need to capture in to different cells, when each data is input in to cell A1. I need to be able to capture the first time data is input in to cell A1 in to another cell, say B1 and B1 must be updated only once when A1 has data input for the first time and cell B1 MUST NOT clear when A1 is cleared. (I believe this prevents using a simple "If,TRUE,FALSE" function?).

I also need to capture the second (and nth) time data is input in to cell A1 in to further cells, say B2 for the second time, B3 for the third etc. etc. etc. And again, once the nth time capture cell has been updated it MUST NOT clear when cell A1 is cleared.

I do not know the actual data to be put in to A1 by the external process other then it will be numbers and MAY be followed by a letter.


I would much prefer to do this via simple Excel functions or commands or maybe via macros but would dearly love to avoid VBA if at all possible.

Any help or suggestions most welcome.

Thanks in advance.


regards,

Andrew

[Fotis1991]

Hi

I don't think that you can do it, using formulae.

I think that the only way to avoid VBA, is Copy >>Paste Special>>only values.

[rewmason]

Thanks for the quick reply and if it is the case that it can't be done via functions of formulae then that would explain why I've spent hours and hours trying to find out and found nothing!!!

If I have to resort to VBA then I'll have to buy a book and read up.

It seems to be something that would be used frequent (or maybe that's just me) so I'm still searching.


Thanks again.

regards,


Andrew