Creating forms with common and uncommon columns

Suzanne Raphael

I have around 10 forms to create, call them PC01, PC02, PC03, etc. All of the content bones I need for the forms are in a single sheet. There's a column that identifies to which form each question belongs, it's a multi-select column and includes the option of "All" (questions that are common to all forms).

I then have filters to show/hide for each form, e.g. a filter for all rows that pertain to PC01. I'm then copying all the questions in the filtered questions column and pasting them into Sublime text so I can comma-delimit them and save a .csv file to import back into Smartsheet so the questions are in column form, ready for form-making. Of course then I have to go thru and assign field types for each.

So TLDR, there are a lot of steps, a LOT of copying/pasting. It would be REALLY helpful to be able to copy COLUMNS from one form to another. While there is no obvious way to do this, is there a workaround of some sort??

ker9

Hi @Suzanne Raphael

I'll take a stab at this but I don't know if this is really what you need.

You could create a sheet that has all the columns in it (caveat: I don't know how many columns there are and you might have too many to do this). Create a form on the sheet that has all the columns in it. Then either duplicate the form multiple times on the same sheet and modify the columns or save the sheet as New, including the form, and then modify the columns in the sheet/form. You'll still have work to do, but not as much copy/paste. Potentially you could include the codes in the column names to help determine what form they belong on.

Hope this was a little helpful.

Suzanne Raphael

@ker9 Thanks for your suggestion. I actually just finished doing this, basically, but the moral to the story is that there are some features that are a natural progression for an application that wants to stay relevant. I appreciate the work-around spirit, I just get tired of it sometimes, not gonna lie.

Cheers,

Suzanne