I want to generate a report that pulls from all of my timelines weekly

daveschimpf

I have a number of timelines that are separate, but overlap in timing. (Different projects but many are in the air at once). Is there a way for me to generate a weekly report that can automatically go out to my team so they can see what is due that week across each timeline?

Jake Gustafson

You can create a Report that uses multiple sources. Assuming they (the sheets) are not all in one Workspace or folder where you could select that entity, and anything newly added would be picked up in the Report to reduce your manual intervention (I forget which way it works specifically). From there, you can set an automated repetitive e-mail of the Report to a user group. It isn't as user friendly on the editing side as an automation workflow in a sheet, but it's doable. As long as the intended audience has access to all the underlying sheets, then the rows should display for them in the Report (assuming they also have access to that).

Another option I've used is to setup an Automation Workflow in a sheet and use the Alert Someone with the Message Only option and include the URL to the Report you want them to work out of. That way you don't even provide the native sheet link, simply the aesthetically pleasing Report for them to easily enter values into the few columns that may be required.

Short story long, there are options and depending on how all your sheets are setup, that might guide you to the most efficient solution for your situation.

daveschimpf

@Jake Gustafson This is super helpful! I was using the wrong terminology in my search and coming up empty. It seems what I want to do is an automated repetitive email. My next question then, is can I have it so the report pulls in tasks from different timelines, within the same folder? So I could have it pull X task is due for Project A this week, Y task is due for project B, etc?

Jake Gustafson

Yeah, you select the various sources/inputs for your Report, then set your filters accordingly to display the desired items.

daveschimpf

@Jake Gustafson So is a report different from the automated email that I want to have sent out? Are those two different things?

Jake Gustafson

Yes. From a Sheet, you can build an Automated Workflow to alert specific people or people from a column on a row record. You set the parameters and what triggers that e-mail (which could be every Monday at 10am or when a particular column value is met). A report allows you to display a) limited data from a large Sheet or b) similar data from multiple Sheets. It's similar to a Filter on a Sheet but allows you more slicing and dicing options as well as trimming down what is displayed. Users can edit right in the Report and technically all the columns are accessible even when not displayed in the Report.

I'm assuming when you say Timeline, you are meaning a Sheet that has items with dates.

daveschimpf

@Jake Gustafson Yes, I guess I need to learn correct terminology. That's what I mean. I'll keep digging into this and see what I can find. Thank you for your help.