Automatic sorting of a column - workflow?

Kash

Hi, just wondering if anyone set up a workflow to automatically sort a column by date every time it loads.

I have a sheet with calendar dates, where team is entering time off. Then there is a form which also captures time off and populates into this sheet. Instead of the entries going to the relevant date row, they are going at the bottom of the sheet after a few empty rows. Which forces me to sort it by date every time to get them back up in chronological order.

Any work around this?

Paul Newcome

I would suggest having everyone enter through the form and then you can create a report from the sheet that will auto-sort.

Ryan Sides

@Kash

You can't sort via Workflows, but CAN do this through the API. If you have a developer friend they can set this up for you pretty quickly.

Kash

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/358937#Comment_358937

Good suggestion but in my case, the master sheet needs to be accessed for leave modifications. However, you have a good point, I am looking into creating a replica report which can be used for the view + modifications that the team will need to make. Thanks for that thought! This is getting exciting :)

Kash

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/358938#Comment_358938

Nice - I have a whole developer team, need to get them engaged huh

Paul Newcome

@Kash You should still be able to edit in the Report. I use this method pretty frequently where I have the Report for auto-sorting and editing and a form for new entries both dropped onto a dashboard for easy access.

Kash

Thanks Paul, that's exactly how I set it up. I like the dashboards to be the one stop solution to link back to everything internal and external that the audience needs.

Although I wish Dashboards had more enhance features. I tried synching it with Miro to embed diagrams but those come out really small and need to be clicked to view on its own platform - problem being the audience not always has access to Miro so it limits to put them as images which defeats the purpose of dynamic dashboard.

Paul Newcome

@Kash Happy to help. 👍️

I agree that having everything in a "one stop shop" type of dashboard makes things MUCH easier for the end user, but I also agree that Smartsheet dashboards could use some functionality upgrades. Are you using image widgets for the Miro diagrams or web content widgets?

Kash

I am actually using both widgets, the image at the top show a clear overview of the project, followed by a smaller web content widget at the bottom to actually go to the item and add feedback/ review data in Miro.

I could possibly use widget behavior to lead to and open the item in Miro directly but I like that web content widget which adds a bit of dynamic view.

Perhaps, I could break the images into smaller areas to show on the dashboard and then put on the dashboard to show areas of the big picture in different boxes. Still working with it.

SSFeatures

Hi @Kash, I created a browser extension that you can use to automatically sort the column every time that it loads, or every time that the data changes.

You can can click here to download the browser extension.

Then click "Sort Rows":

Then click "Sort Automatically":

Then the browser extension will automatically sort the data whenever it loads, or whenever the data changes. The browser extension also saves your sort settings, so that you don't need to manually re-enter them.

Also, this automatic sorting works with filters. So if you enable automatic sorting, and then add a filter, the extension will automatically sort the data even with a filter enabled.

Best!