How to color a cell based on values and date difference in another cell using VBA - vba

Question

Consider I have a Table A in Excel - details as below:
And another Table B as follows
I want out-put as follows,
The Name from Table B has to be checked with Name in Table A, and respective StartDate and EndDate should be picked from Table A and same should be compared with dates in Table B and cell under that name should be colored to green if Status in Table A is in "In Progress" or to Red if in "On hold"
For Example:
Consider Jack in Table B, it has 3 records in Table A, The first start date should be picked i.e 4-Apr-2017 and End date as 27-Apr-2017, and respective coloring has to be done based on status field.
How can I achieve this using VBA/anything in Excel. I'm new to VBA.

Answer 1

Yes you can do it in VBA but I would recommend using conditional formatting (formula) as it doesn't require programming knowledge. To do this, you will need to employ the Vlookup formula.
I believe the output you want is something in the picture link here?
To make conditional formatting, look in the "Home" tab, under Styles -> Conditional Formatting. Highlight the cell you want to format, then select Conditional Formatting -> New Rule. This will cause a new window to pop up. Select "Use a formula to determine which cells to format".
You would want 2 conditional formats.
1.To show green if the date is within the start and end date. To do so, select the first cell in the Gantt chart (cell B8 in example) then enter formula below.
=IF(AND(B$7>=VLOOKUP($A8,$A$2:$D$5,3,FALSE()),B$7<=VLOOKUP($A8,$A$2:$D$5,4,FALSE())),TRUE(),FALSE())
2.To show red when user has item beyond due date, enter formula below with same cell highlighted.
=IF(B$7>VLOOKUP($A8,$A$2:$D$5,4,FALSE()),TRUE(),FALSE())
Once that is done, you can apply the format painter or copy and paste the cell with conditional formatting to extend your table/Gantt chart.
Note that the $ signs are important as they lock the relative reference positions in the formulas. Using the second formula as an example, B$7 refers to the date and you need the reference to be locked to row 7, where all the dates are. On the other hand, the column reference (Column B) can be shifted as you want it to change to with the columns to properly compare against the other dates.
As for multiple items per user, can you expand upon your initial question? Would you like to track based on per user or per item? I am assuming that you're creating a Gantt chart to track a project. In that case, it would make more sense to track specific tasks assigned to people. You can modify the example given to track based on task.