Forms and limiting the number of options one can check across columns

wooddw

We want to have a form where the user can enter their information and select their top 3 needs out of a list of 10.

As I am new to SmartSheet, I may not have designed it correctly. What I did was create 10 checkbox columns and have a column formula that calculates the number of selected items per row. I then have a column with a message of "too many selected" and has conditional formatting changing the font and background colors to make them visible or not based on the number of items selected in the row. This works well in Grid view but not for a form.

Is there a way to check to see how many they selected on a form and display a message when more than 3? Or is there a better way to do it in Smartsheet?

Thanks.

SoS | Dan Palenchar

This will be a little tricky, basically you cannot have the form display information from the Sheet that is dependent on a change. In other words, your formula cannot show in the form. The data is not actually in the Sheet until the form is entered.

What I would suggest is to create 3 single select drop down lists with the 10 options. This will allow users to enter only 3 choices.

If you really want to get fancy, you can create a bunch a series of columns for the 2nd and 3rd choices with 9 and 8 choices respectively, and use form logic so that you only show then 2nd choice column that does not include the first choice and the 3rd choice column that does not include the 1st and 2nd choice.