Find Pasted Status Values That Do Not Match a Google Sheets Dropdown

Quick answer

Audit the pasted statuses with COUNTIF against the approved list. S-102 (Paused) and S-104 (Waiting) should show REVIEW without changing the source.

Before you start

Use the fictional status-audit-practice.md and work in a disposable copy. Compare your result with the independent answer-check.md. Use only fictional data.

Step 1: Find 2 Invalid Pasted Statuses

A shared tracker has a dropdown with Open, Pending, and Closed, but a pasted list contains Paused and Waiting. Whether those values arrived before the rule, through a warning setting, or with a paste that changed formatting, the useful question is which rows require review now. We will audit the fictional column without silently replacing source values.

Step 2: Compare source with the allowlist

Paste the fictional five-ticket table from the practice card into a disposable Google Sheet and put the three approved statuses in E2 through E4. Read each status word exactly. Do not change Paused or Waiting yet, because the answer check needs those two near misses to prove the audit works. A dropdown's colored appearance is not enough to establish the stored text is valid.

Step 3: Check the dropdown rule separately

Select the status range and inspect Data validation. Google's dropdown help says a rule can reject invalid typed values or merely warn; confirm the selected range and chosen behavior rather than assuming a visible chip guarantees clean history. If a paste replaced a rule, restore the intended rule in the disposable copy before relying on it for future entries.

Step 4: Create a non-destructive audit

In C2 enter the exact formula shown and fill through C6. COUNTIF checks whether the current B-cell value appears in the approved E2:E4 list. IF returns REVIEW when the count is zero and OK otherwise. The dollar signs keep the allowlist fixed while the B reference moves row by row. This audit does not alter the original statuses.

=IF(COUNTIF($E$2:$E$4,B2)=0,"REVIEW","OK")

Step 5: Find the two specific mismatches

C2 through C6 should read OK, REVIEW, OK, REVIEW, OK. The REVIEW rows are S-102 with Paused and S-104 with Waiting. Check the IDs, not just the count of two; a copied formula starting on the wrong row could produce an apparently plausible total. Consult the owner of the tracker before mapping either word to an approved status.

Step 6: S-102 and S-104 Need Review

After deciding what Paused and Waiting mean, edit only the reviewed practice rows and confirm every audit cell becomes OK. If the real workflow needs to reject future invalid entries, set that behavior in the validation rule and test with a disposable row. The lesson's claim is narrow: it identifies current mismatches, not that any particular paste path is automatically blocked.

Check your result

The approved values in E2:E4 are Open, Pending, and Closed. For B2:B6, =IF(COUNTIF($E$2:$E$4,B2)=0,"REVIEW","OK") filled down in C2:C6 yields OK, REVIEW, OK, REVIEW, OK. The mismatches are S-102/Paused and S-104/Waiting. The source statuses remain unchanged until deliberately corrected; the audit itself does not enforce or repair the dropdown.

Limits and troubleshooting

Do not claim that a dropdown always blocks pasted data; behavior depends on how data and validation rules were pasted or imported. A rule can be absent or overwritten. The COUNTIF audit used here is intentionally case-insensitive; this exercise uses clearly different invalid words. For case-sensitive identifiers, use a different exact-match check and test it in the app.

Product references

• Google Sheets dropdown lists
• Google Sheets COUNTIF function
• Google Sheets function reference