Amanda, Thank you for your reply,
I'm not sure why this would be an issue...it seems to me that one should be able to protect the sheet and still have the searchable DD list working.
Never-the-less, Both the cells with the DD list and the cells where the list references too are all unprotected/unlocked. So, as you wrote "...the Searchable DD list available as long as the cells where you apply the feature are unlocked", am I misreading this or missing something?
Thanks,
VinceF
Excel 2016