lookups with multiple possible combinations

[KWhamill]

I have certain data from a data base that has these key values. and i would
like to be able to look up valid combinations by picking just one of the
values. for example:
Value Category Number
Alpha thing 12345
Beta Vegetable 23456
gamma Rocks 34567

I would like to be able to select or type "value" in one cell and have a
valid combination of category and number appear in the other two. by and
large the vlookups and the dropdowns are doing there thing. but in the rare
instances where i have more than one "value" (as indicated by the greek
alphabet above) , which means there are other combinations involving that
value, I only ever get the first oneand this is wqhat i need a clever
solution for.
thank you,

 

[Dave]

Hi,
If you have duplicates in your "Value" column, do you want all the Category
and Number entries associated with all the instances of the value? As I
understand it, at present you only have one cell to display Category and one
to display Number, for any selection of Value. Where do you want the extra
info to display if the Value is a duplicate?
Regards - Dave.

 

[KWhamill]

Dave,
An excellent question and thank you for responding. let me begin by saying i
don't care how it works I'm trying to come up with a way that it will work.
what i am trying to do is produce a text file made of corrections that i can
upload back into a database, but this data base is picky about this
particular combination (value, category, and ID number). Unfortunetly for me
in this case there is no Unique value among any of those that i can identify
unless i concatenate all three fields. I was hoping i could choose from among
different versions of the same Value (value being one of the fields) since
this is the easiest reference. if there is some way i can narrow the options
in a series of subsequent dropdowns that would be fine too.
I thank you ofr your time
R,
Karl