Change project name in Control center

Joe Goetschel

There is a long story behind this but I need to change the name of a Parent project in control center. Without doing this the children projects are not launching. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

mzpjames

For anyone reading this thread, the answer ends up being that there isn't anything you can do through Control Center to make this work. Your choices are:

1. Change the project name back to the original one (in your project intake sheet) (basically do not change).
2. Create a new project for the new name and leave the existing one in place (you end up with 2 projects).
3. Create a new project for the new name, then manually move over any sub-projects/metrics/etc. Then, when everything is manually moved/fixed, delete the old project. (for me, this is a ton of manual labor).

Essentially, there is no good answer, especially if you have a lot of child projects. I ended up rejecting the name change and set the name back to the original. Not a good business solution. Smartsheet needs to allow project name changes, that's the only reasonable solution.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Joe Goetschel

This currently is not possible as you've found; please submit your feature request to the Product team by creating an Idea Post in the Smartsheet Product Feedback and Ideas topic here in the Community so other members can vote on it as well.

Cheers,

Genevieve

mzpjames

Hi Genevieve,

I am having this same problem and need help to understand how I can handle this (what is the workaround).

We have multiple "project" levels: Industry --> Clients --> Projects --> Tasks

We have setup Blueprints for: Industry, Clients, and Projects (Tasks do not have workspaces and are just rows on sheets).

My problem is that I have an existing Client, for which I already have many Projects (and Tasks), but the Client Name has changed (actually only a "," comma was added in the name). So, when the users are filling out the "New Project Form", they are choosing the new name of the Client (of course). But, Control Center will NOT provision any new Project for this Client, because the Client Name no longer matches the original Client Name (that was used to create that "project" (actually Client)).

Here is the error that I see in Control Center:

"Project Not Provisioned. The parent project 'XXXXXXXX' cannot be found."

I have tried any option in Control Center, but as you point out, changing this is not allowed in Smartsheet Control Center.

The Client Name in all of our sheets has been updated, which triggered Control Center to update that name in "the data" in all relevant sheets: Metric sheet, Project Rollup sheet, Profile Data sheet, etc. I say "the data" because while Control Center creates all of the Workspaces and Files using the name of the Client, and it updates the data contained in the linked sheets, it won't change the names of the Workspaces/Files (but this is a separate issue). I did this manually.

So, now I am stuck with the Client name being changed "everywhere" EXCEPT in Control Center. Now Control Center refuses to provision any new Projects (for that parent Client) because the name has been changed.

How can I fix/workaround this, as it is a total work stoppage for us? How can I get the new Client name in Control Center without losing any data or any linkages (between cells/sheets) that already exist?

Thanks!

Paul

Joe Goetschel

Hi Paul! Now that I am on the Consulting side as a Partner I have had the time to find workarounds.

Basically, you have to reprovision the customer and relink etc. It all depends on how you have this all built out currently to determine the level of effort.

If you want to jump on a quick call so I can see your environment let me know I can do a free discovery call.

mzpjames

For anyone reading this thread, the answer ends up being that there isn't anything you can do through Control Center to make this work. Your choices are:

1. Change the project name back to the original one (in your project intake sheet) (basically do not change).
2. Create a new project for the new name and leave the existing one in place (you end up with 2 projects).
3. Create a new project for the new name, then manually move over any sub-projects/metrics/etc. Then, when everything is manually moved/fixed, delete the old project. (for me, this is a ton of manual labor).

Essentially, there is no good answer, especially if you have a lot of child projects. I ended up rejecting the name change and set the name back to the original. Not a good business solution. Smartsheet needs to allow project name changes, that's the only reasonable solution.

mzpjames

I have an update concerning option #3 in my comment above:

If you have a multi-tier relationship (parent Clients to multiple child Projects, in my case), this relationship CANNOT be changed in Smartsheet. So, if you create a new Parent, physically move all folders/sheets/reports/etc. and move rows in your intake sheets, it will "appear" that the Project has been moved to a new parent, but Control Center is still hanging on to that original relationship.

So, if you delete the original Parent (after moving everything), it will still auto-delete the Child project (from it's new location). You can manually delete the old parent folder and intake row, but DO NOT delete it using Control Center (as it will delete anything it incorrectly thinks is still a "child"). Apparently, there is no way to remove or change the parent/child relationship in Control Center, even using global search/replace capability.

I created a Python script that will move child Projects to a new Parent (physically moves and renames all of the folders/sheets) and also moves/updates rows in intake and roll-up sheets. But, this is not simple and requires some upfront work. Hopefully, Smartsheet will be updating the Control Center to allow us to rename projects and move child projects to a different parent.