Another Excel Question

regulus · 3 Aug 2014 at 21:21

A quick question if I may. I really don't know if this is possible but I'll ask anyway.

Random numbers. I need Excel to generate a random number consisting of 4-5 digits. Numbers or letter. Doesn't matter. Preferably a mixture of both but I could settle for numbers only.

For example. '234961' is for Carpentry Works on Site A. I'll use this number as a Work Order when I send out the work. So when I get invoiced at the end of the month I'd know that '234961' were for Carpentry Works on Site A. So a UI type system would be great but probably a bit too advanced for my burgeoning skills. I'd settle for Column A to be populated with 20k random numbers and just work off that. Makes sense?

Or perhaps another idea on how to better implement such a system?

regulus · 3 Aug 2014 at 21:49

Got the Random number thing up and running (Google before you post dummie!) and populated column A. The only issue now is that when I enter data into Column B, Column A is dynamically updating. Which kinda defeats the purpose. How do I 'lock' Column A from updating after adding Random numbers?

spydermixx · 3 Aug 2014 at 21:52

Copy > Paste Special > Values

andshrew · 4 Aug 2014 at 13:58

You don't really need to be generating random numbers for this, what would be better is just just generating a series of numbers which you can use for your work orders, and you can do this using Excel's auto fill series option.

Eg. Put 'W10001' into A1. Select the cell and then left-click and drag down the bottom right hand corner of the cell. It will auto-complete the series so each row has a unique number, 'W10002', 'W10003' and so on.