Can Excel send alerts when due dates are not met?

[Guest]

If I want to know if a something has not met the due date set in my
spreadsheet, can Excel send me an alert in some way?

Or can the cell become flagged when the date is not met so it can be easily
detected?

 

[Shatin]

One way to do it would be to use Conditional Formatting. Let's say the due
dates are all in Column A:

- Select all the cells that you would like to apply the Conditional
Formatting to.
- Format>Conditional Formatting
- Assuming there's no conditional formats already, under condition 1, choose
from the drop down menu "Formula Is" rather than "Cell Value Is".
- Enter this formula in the adjacent box: =A1-TODAY()<0
- Select the formatting you want.

One thing to note is TODAY() is a volatile function. It's not a good idea to
have too many volatile functions in your worksheet. So if you have a lot of
dates, it is better to enter in one of the blank cells, say F1, the formula
= TODAY().
For your conditional formatting, you then enter this formula instead:
=A1-$F$1<0