'Helper' Column Management via New Column Type (or Side Panel?)

Kevin M.

Many of us, if not most, use one or more helper columns to achieve the Sheet functions that we need. Good practice is to hide the helper columns (when possible) so that the sheet user isn't bombarded with noise.

Unfortunately, hidden columns still appear while in Card View. My solution for this is to move all of the helper columns to the end of the sheet, add a new column to the right of the last column of relevance to the sheet user and populate it with "🛑 End of Card 🛑" or something similar. When scrolling down the card, the red stop sign emojis stand out and the user knows they don't need to scroll through the remaining n fields.

A new Column Type named "Helper" could solve this. It would be even better to build this in conjunction with a menu option to specifically Hide/Unhide Helper Columns.

Hidden columns of the Helper type would:

• not appear in Card View
• not appear in published versions of the sheet
• not appear in the column selection dropdowns for report and sheet filters OR,
• ...simply shove them to the bottom of these lists and denote their helper status somehow (Italics, perhaps?)

Hopefully, the community can help me fine-tune this feature request.

-Kevin

P.S. I thought of the "column type" solution while typing up another solution idea for this problem. If the above doesn't gain any traction, maybe this will:

. . . [H]ow about adding a new panel to the right-side toolbar -- similar in function to the Sheet Summary panel -- to contain the helper formulas. Each row could look at the specific value for the helper formulas for that row.

Helper columns could be "moved" to this panel via a toggle in the context menu when right-clicking on the column header, similar to the Lock/Unlock Column toggle. Perhaps this option only appears if the column has a column formula.

Michelle Choate 2

I love this idea! I use helper columns for formulas, reports, and so much more. Our project sheets have sometimes upwards of twenty hidden helper columns. It would be fantastic to have them hidden in card view and published versions of the sheet.

Adrian Mandile CHESS

Hi @Kevin M. , @Michelle Choate 2,

I like this idea also. I go so far to suggest that we have 'Hidden' as a checkbox attribute in the column properties for all column types. In this way we could use a 'Show/Hide Columns' toggle feature that would re-hide all the column that we want to hide at once, instead of having to re-select the specific columns, wherever they may be located in our sheet.

This 'Hidden' attribute could then carry over to the various views as a choice (show 'hidden' columns or hide them).

Kevin M.

I go so far to suggest that we have 'Hidden' as a checkbox attribute in the column properties for all column types. In this way we could use a 'Show/Hide Columns' toggle feature that would re-hide all the column that we want to hide at once...

This would be a great addition to this request, @Adrian Mandile CHESS

Sara Campbell

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/401461#Comment_401461

This would be HUGE - or at least a dropdown to show WHICH columns to show/hide so i don't have to manually rehide everything when i just need one column.

Bo Lewis

Brilliant idea!! Solves SO MANY problems. Helper Columns are fundamental to creating powerful Smartsheets and enabling effective automations. We need a little more love in dealing with them.