Common sense dictates that the End Date of an employment contract should be greater than the Start Date. But alas, one can easily enter the End Date wrongly in an MS Excel data range. To ensure that the End Dates are entered correctly the Data Validation option should be used. Below we explain how by using the Data Validation option the End Date is set to be greater than the Start Date in a cell.
Applies To: Excel 2003, 2007, 2010
- The screen shot below will be used for this example
2. Select the data range C3:C10
3. From the Data Tab, in the Data Tools group, select Data Validation
4. Select as per screen shot below
5. Select OK
6. Select Cell C3 and enter 2009/10/20: Since the date entry is less than the Start Date the following error message will be displayed
7. Select Retry and enter 2009/12/23
You will notice that the date entry has been accepted because it is greater than the Start Date. In that manner only End Dates greater than the Start Dates will be accepted in the specified data range.
N.B. When entering dates ensure that you adhere to the correct date formats used by Excel in that spreadsheet.
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