I am wondering if it’s possible to add a dropdown menu selection for Tags (the tags list can come from another sheet or tags that already exist in the Transaction “Tags” column).
Currently, categories can be selected like this from a Dropdown.
However, tags do not have a dropdown nor does it autofill even if there is a similar field in the same column. If I type “Ta” and normally it would autosuggest that I use “Tax” (since Tax is already used above it). But for some reason this column doesn’t autosuggest anything.
Even if a Dropdown is not possible (which I am hoping there is some solution for this) in other sheets, the cell data is auto-suggested if the text exists already. Notice I already have “January” typed and when typing “Ja” it suggests January and then I can just hit enter.
One of the reasons for this is because for tags I don’t often I may put “Taxes” instead of “Tax”, or “Review” instead of “Needs Review”, or just mistype a tag. And by doing so I am creating an unnecessary new tag group.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
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I don’t have that many tags as of yet so the tags manager seems overkill for me, so I just use a list on my tags report sheet that i have added, then on the tags column you add data validation that points to the list of tags created on the tags report
I’m typing from mobile and memory but basically the process would be make a list of the tags you want somewhere, then right click on the tags column, select data validation and go through the prompts to point it to the range where the list lives, also include extra space for future tags such as G3:G will look at the whole column for the validation then you’ll select the dropdown option instead of arrows or chips that Google sheets recently implemented.
If you need more help let me know and next time I’m on the computer I’ll get the rest of the steps.
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Autocomplete works in my tags column. It’s odd that it’s not working in yours. Sometimes I wish it didn’t work! I often use multiple tags on an item and if I only want the first tag on a specific item, I often get frustrated that it autocompletes the extra tags. eg. I might want the tag ‘tax’ but if another item has, say, ‘tax,dave’, ‘tax,dave’ is suggested.
My challenge is how to be able to select multiple values from a drop down. I believe it can be done with a script but not sure if the functionality would become cumbersome.
My current approach is to use the filter function on the tags column periodically to see if I have any rogue tags and fix them. It seems to work on for me.
@MarcC thank you for the suggestion. I will try to get what @bentyre1 recommended first, as the Tag Manager plugin does seem a little overkill for what I am looking for.
@bentyre1 if you don’t mind sharing how you have yours set up I would appreciate it. I tried doing a data validation but I couldn’t figure out how to connect it to other data in another sheet to show a proper dropdown.
@davidmark I see what you’re saying about multiple tags. In my case, I’m almost always just using 1 tag. Also, my column autocompletes ONLY if the field is directly above/below an existing tag. See this example:
Thanks @doitlikejustin I never figured out that autocomplete never worked where rows are blank above and below so good to know.
I think the simplest solution is just using Insert => Dropdown You get a nice sidebar to add your tags (and colours if you want). If you ever do want multiple tags for a specific transaction, you could just add that combination to the dropdown eg. HSA,TAX (and also have HSA and TAX as separate items in the dropdown.) Hope that helps.
Highly recommend checking out this: Docs: Using Tags in the Categories sheet
Rather than tagging at the category level, you can tag more broadly at the category level then using the Category Rollup report build a line item deduction report for just your “tax” categories.
@heather Using tags in the Categories sheet doesn’t apply tags to transactions directly, so the transactions won’t show up in the “Tags Report” report sheet
I’ve just got mine list to the right of the tags report extra columns and I’ve got them hidden so mine wound up in column T but you could really put it wherever you’d like.
This screenshot shows what I’ve got set up for data validation in the transactions sheet, it points to that column for the list of tags and then provides the dropdown option with the advanced settings part of data validation selected as an arrow.
So to start with, set up your initial tags in the tags report on some column, (I shaded this column green to remind myself that I can add more tags to it.) Once this column is set up go back to the transactions sheet and right click the tags column, select data validation, then select the option for dropdown from a range. On the range select, you can actually just click over to the tags report instead of having to type in the correct syntax, once you click over to the tags report, highlight the range where your tags will live.
That should complete the steps needed for data validation, but if I missed something just let me know.
@bentyre1 Thank you! That worked. I removed the last cell number as well, from ='Tags Report'!$N$9:$N$100 to ='Tags Report'!$N$9:$N so that it picks up all of them if I ever have more tags that go past row 100.
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