What is validation criteria in Google Sheets?
Validation Criteria controls what people can type in a cell: dropdowns, checkboxes, chips, warnings, or reject rules. Validation reduces bad data before it breaks formulas downstream.
When to use it
Use validation when many people edit the same input columns and you need consistent entries.
When to skip it
Skip complex validation when a form, script, or single-editor workflow already guarantees clean input.
Better Sheets resources
Related Tutorials
Watch how validation criteria works
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Related blog posts
Guides that explain validation criteria in more depth.
Getting Started in Google Sheets Spreadsheet Management
Users can also customize the appearance of their spreadsheets with different fonts, colors, and themes.
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Read post →Philippines Phone Number Validation: Use of REGEXMATCH in Google Sheets
Every school year thousands of students and teachers’ data were being added to the school database. As someone who was always given the task to narrow down lots of information after the school enrollment, validating students’ data manually is very exhausting. Take this as an example, when you ask students to include the phone numbers of their emergency contact person, there are some instances wherein the declared numbers were invalid due to human error. And the assigned personnel during enr...
Read post →Related terms
dropdowns / data validation
Data validation restricts what people can type in a cell. A dropdown is the friendly face of that feature: pick from a list instead of free text. It keeps statuses, categories, and owners consistent so filters, pivot tables, and scripts do not break on typos.
Read guide →Data validation
Data validation restricts what can be entered in a cell before bad data spreads through your model. Rules can enforce dropdown lists, number ranges, dates, text length, or custom formulas that return TRUE. Invalid entries can be rejected or warned with a note. Validation is the front door quality check for shared trackers and intake sheets.
Read guide →Checkbox
A checkbox is a cell control that stores TRUE when checked and FALSE when unchecked. Insert checkboxes from Insert > Checkbox or data validation. They power task lists, approval flags, and conditional formulas without typing yes or no by hand.
Read guide →Chip
Chips are visual tokens in a cell that represent a chosen value from a list or a person from your organization. Dropdown chips show colored pills for categories and statuses. People chips link to Google contacts for assignees and reviewers. They keep typed data consistent while looking clearer than plain text.
Read guide →Done reading about validation criteria?
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