Symbol Flexibility - more symbol colors/options

jasonrude

Thanks for this thread @Robby CK.

As someone who is red/green colour-blind, interpreting this sort of traffic lighting is a common challenge, and one that's (understandably) hard for most people to grasp. I can tell you from experience though, it's tough when you're the only one in the meeting that can't understand the material.

Your suggestion will make the product more inclusive and accessible, so hopefully it gets traction!

Jason

isabonita

I would love to utilize the Symbol column type for custom symbols rather than creating a dropdown column.

OR if you guys could add a colored ball option that includes all 5 colors (red, green, yellow, blue, and gray)

Currently, we are using the symbol column and the colored balls max out at 4 (with 2 different color options) we really need to have 5 - and I would have to change the column type (which would may or may not break the reports and dynamic views) and make this a dropdown - which affects all of the existing formulas, filters, etc.

Julie Becker

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/349212#Comment_349212

This is what i am doing now.. i have created many columns using emojis and its various symbols from this site (that was recommended from one of the Smartsheet Team Leaders in another thread) ----> https://emojipedia.org/objects

See images below or the two attached as examples

07-31-23 -68 (0126PM) Screenshot.png

07-31-23 -67 (0125PM) Screenshot.png

Kathy Nordeen

I would like the ability to have 5 colored circle symbols, Red, Yellow, Green, Blue and Grey.

Joseph Gasparro

More robust coloring of available symbols is a fundamental need. In this day, metric targets/trends are not simply down arrow is red and up arrow is green. Down green for lowering expenses. Up red for increasing expenses are two basic use cases. If you expect leaders to use dashboards, then out of the box functionality needs to be expanded. If you expect people to create their own solution, then what is the purpose of having a symbol column to start with?

It's all just a list of acceptable values for the column in some backend list anyway.

Julie Becker

I agree with you all, and this is my work around as we/I dont care much for the limited options we do have available. Maybe this will get you all by for now.

I used the links below to make my own drop-down symbols (I replace the emoji code name in the formulas if used in place of Harvey balls). I tested them in formulas (some work, some do not) and now use in our sheets.

Here are a few images to show you them in action. Not sure if this is what you're after, though...

https://emojipedia.org/symbols

https://emojipedia.org/objects

https://emojiterra.com/

Sarah Butterworth

Hello

Currently there are 5 Symbol colours but you can only use 4 of them. Can you add an addition where you can use all 5. Would be much more helpful when building Project Plans.

Ie, Green = On Track / Yellow = Risk, Project not affected / Red = Risk, project affected / Blue = complete / Grey = Not started

Thank you

Sarah

Paul Newcome

Until this becomes a thing, you can use UNICHAR(11044) to output a black dot which can have the color changed using conditional formatting which allows you to use any of the colors in the Conditional Formatting pallet.

Mariann Carmen

I use emoji's to add additional colors when needed. See example below:

=IF(Status@row = "Not Started", "⚪", IF(Status@row = "In Progress", "🟢", IF(Status@row = "Complete", "🔵", IF(Status@row = "At Risk", "🟡", IF(Status@row = "Behind Schedule", "🔴", IF(Status@row = "Task Deleted", "❌", IF(Status@row = "On Hold", "🟣")))))))

Salèha El D.

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/361230#Comment_361230

I currently use this with my WorFlow, it's brilliant, it serves it's purpose.

Now, I also need the Symbols, and I often find that I require more options (symbols/colours) so I would love to see:

• at least a Symbol column-type with five colors options
• and I would also like to use conditional formatting to color code arrows appropriately

Carla S

It would be great to have an option that includes all 5....

Gray - Not Started

Green On track

Yellow - At risk

Red - In trouble

Blue - Complete

Julie Becker

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/402997#Comment_402997

As much as i would agree with this, I believe it would be more useful for all users to be able to have the programs Conditional Formatting Features choose the colors we tell it too based upon the statuses we list in our sheets since many of us use similar but not exact status names & colors.

For example, green for us = completed or approved while gray = voided or relocated (construction uses), blue = in progress, & red (#F87E7D) = not started.

So while it would be awesome to have those options, from a software standpoint on a program used by many different types of businesses/needs, it would be in their best interest (& cheaper IMO) to add additional requested symbols and then have/allow the program to change their symbols to a color we choose in the Conditional Formatting rather than try to provide a standard one for us all to use. I can't 😔 use some of their symbols for this reason (see example above), which is why I had to use the drop-down feature, adding my own.

But regardless, everyone's wants/needs in this current discussion has extremely valuable ideas/solutions that I hope Smartsheets R&D team is actually following & working on, so that we can see requests like this go from being ignored to implemented 🙂

Carla S

Julie - I think just having more options would be great, they do not have to relate directly to a specific status across the board, everyone could use the 5 symbols to represent what they want them to represent, mine was only an example of how I would use it. :)

Carla S

Dan B SS

I can select symbols for RAG status and my company use Red, Amber, Green, Blue and Grey for on hold/paused. I don't have the ability to select a choice that has all 5, I either have blue or grey.