How to change the name of a Summary Field on a Dashboard?

Kristina Feocco

Maybe a dumb question but I can't figure out how to do it or if it can be done by searching on the Community.

I have a source sheet of client data that's summarized into 3 Summary fields by the assigned specialists. I've then pulled those 3 fields separately into several Summary Reports that I used to build tiles on a Dashboard.

The problem is that the Summary fields on the source sheet need to be specific because there are so many of them (i.e. John Smith Total Client Count, John Smith Total Points Count, John Smith Over/Under, then repeat for ~50 different people along with several other Summary Fields). However, because each tile on my Dashboard represents a different data point (Tile #1 shows the client count for each specialist, Tile #2 shows the total points for each specialist, and Tile #3 shows the over/under for each specialist), it's unnecessary to have the full Summary Field title show. In fact, it makes the tiles look pretty unruly because several of my team have very long or hyphenated names (i.e. Jane Loise Smith-Doe Total Points Count). Additionally, because there are so many people on my team and because we're using a Summary Report, the only chart that makes sense is the bar graph which means that I either need to use a legend, which makes it very hard to read, or I need to "switch rows and columns", which make the graph super tiny so it can account for 3 inches of Summary titles.

So, is there any way to change the name of the Summary fields on the Summary Report or dashboard so that the dashboard tiles show "Jane" instead of "Jane Loise Smith-Doe Total Points Count" without changing the Summary field title on the source sheet?

Example - Smartsheet.com.png

Ipshita

@Kristina Feocco yes it would absolutely work!

Just use the report to create the chart on your dashboard. This report will have the new values you have selected from the working sheet, basically what you are doing is "renaming the summary fields" in the columns you created, then you are creating a report with these new columns - call it a summary field report, if you want and then use this report to create your charts/graphs on the dashboard!

We do this all the time - the value in this column would have a # to the end of the [ ] and then just rename these columns. Trust me, this will work :) just give it a try!

Cheers!

Ipshita

Hi @Kristina Feocco ,

As far as I know, the only way you can change the name of a summary field on a dashboard is if you were charting using the Metric widget. Select the data sheet that has summary fields, chart it on a dashboard using the Metric widget and then click on the name of the summary field to edit it.

Alternately, you can create summary field columns towards the end of your working sheet (so that it's not seen by everyone in your team and later you can even hide them), name them whatever you like for example, "Client Count" and in that enter the values from the related summary fields from the same sheet using the =[name_of_the summary_field]# , i.e. just by adding a hash (pound sign) to the summary field name. Now, you can create a report using these new columns and you have your edited view for the dashboard.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!!

Kristina Feocco

Hi @Ipshita!

Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately, that won't work because I need the graph.

Thank you anyways!

Ipshita

@Kristina Feocco yes it would absolutely work!

Just use the report to create the chart on your dashboard. This report will have the new values you have selected from the working sheet, basically what you are doing is "renaming the summary fields" in the columns you created, then you are creating a report with these new columns - call it a summary field report, if you want and then use this report to create your charts/graphs on the dashboard!

We do this all the time - the value in this column would have a # to the end of the [ ] and then just rename these columns. Trust me, this will work :) just give it a try!

Cheers!

Kristina Feocco

@Ipshita This worked! Thank you so much!

Just to clarify for anybody else that might be reading this post, the suggestion was to add columns named however you'd like to the source sheet and enter "=[Summary Field Name]#" in the first row. Then you can setup a Chart on the dashboard just using the new columns. It worked like a charm!

Ipshita

@Kristina Feocco - I am glad it worked! Don't forget to hit the Awesome button to my answer above! ;)

Cheers!!!