What is the goal of your workflow? What problem does it solve, or how does it help you?
As I’ve started to use Tags increasingly, I found that managing them has become an issue. Based on work that @Brad.warren did with the Category Schedule template, I created a Tags sheet, and used data validation on the Transactions sheet to grab a list of tags from it. This was a good start, but I was already using tags for other workflows that didn’t fit well with this solution, and also found that when I wanted to use a new tag, I’d often forget to add it to the Tags sheet.
After a few iterations, I decided the best option was to build a system that would import tags from any chosen sheets (it does ‘Transactions’ out of the box), and includes a ‘manual’ list of tags as well (great option for when you first start using tags). I borrowed a formula from the Tags Report template that pulls in the existing ‘Transactions’ tags and handles multiple comma separated tags.
Other sources can be added by changing the placeholder info (name of sheet, and cell of the first tag of a vertical list). For example, if you use tags on your Categories sheet, you might add that, or if you use the Category Schedule template you can includes those tags:
Please describe your workflow. What are the sheets? Does it use any custom scripts or formulas?
Install the Tag Manager from the Tiller Community Solutions Add-on. Make changes in the green cells, either manually entering any tags you want to appear in the drop-down for the Tags column, or entering info on other sheets you have with lists of tags.
Then, on your ‘Transactions’ sheet, create a ‘Tags’ column if you don’t already have one (doesn’t matter where as long as it is called ‘Tags’). Select the first cell below the ‘Tags’ label, scroll to the bottom of your sheet, hold down the shift key, and select the last cell in that column. This should have selected all the cells in your tags column except for the cell the label is in. Go to the ‘Data’ menu and choose ‘Data Validation’. Make sure ‘Criteria’ is set to “List from a range” (it should be by default) and in the box to the right of that, where it says “Enter a range or formula”, enter ='Tag Manager'!C2:C. This tells it to look on the Tag Manager sheet in the cells from C2 through the bottom of column C. Click ‘Save’ and you should see drop down menu indicators appear on all the cells in your Tags column. Click on one and you should see a list of any tags you already had, along with any tags you manually entered or pulled from other sheets!
Anything else you’d like people to know?
If you only use one tag per transaction this works very smoothly. If you use more than one tag on a transaction (separated by a comma with no spaces), then they will need to be manually added (can’t use the dropdown for anything more than one tag) and the cell will have the red ‘Invalid’ triangle since the multiple tags don’t exist in the list on the Tags sheet.
Is it ok for others to copy, use, and modify your workflow?
Yes, please, and let me know if you have problems or ideas for improvements!
If you said yes above, please make a copy of your workflow and share the copy’s URL:
Note: I rebranded this from “TagComb” to “Tag Manager” but can’t get the name on the sharing link to change…