Maintain the accuracy and quality of your data files by keeping track, spotting and resolving unprotected formulas in Excel. This process is recommended to be performed every once in a while to ensure that your data is still accurate and can be used for future purposes. While it sounds awfully complicated, achieving this is actually fairly straightforward. Here’s how you can handle these tricky formulas:
Once you have saved your Excel files, it’s time to perform a cursory error detection in your formulas. Microsoft Excel actually makes this process fairly straightforward by warning users and displaying error values when formulas go awry. You can then identify the nature of the errors and go about looking for a solution.
Unprotected formulas in Excel usually are displayed in 2 forms- either a green triangle appears (upper left corner) in the cell that has a formula attached to it, or the error appearing in the Error Checking dialog box. If you happen to have unresolved formulas, the likeliest reason or cause for this would be that the cells with formulas have not been locked for security reasons and Microsoft Excel is notifying you since all cells are locked by default to prevent unauthorised changes or accidental changes.
To resolve this, you will be required to “lock” the cell again manually.
Go to the cell that contains unresolved formulas and select the Error Checking button ( the button showing ! with a yellow diamond as the background). This will then enable you to Lock Cell. Authorising and selecting this command will allow you to successfully lock your cells and protect them from being changed or avoid errors.
However, this is only a temporary measure. If you wish to fully protect your data and resolve this issue permanently, it is recommended that you protect your workbook so that all the data you have will not be changed by others. You can even set a user specific password for yourself so that no one else can have access.
Unresolved formulas in Excel will not pose as a large threat if you have your workbook file stored in a secure location. So if you do not wish to resolve it, it is perfectly fine to leave it as it is. However, do know that the error message will remain there every time you open your file. This can only be stopped if you choose to disable the error checking rule altogether.
