What is the best way to add table like data for user to fill in a form?

SaniaMarco

I am asking people to complete a form when their salary is split between projects/schools.

(1) Name

(2) Employee ID:

(3) Start Date:

(4) End Date:

More than 1 project? Y/N

*if more than one, I need the following for EACH project and some folks have 5-6 projects

(5) Project name, (6) flat amount or (7)% of base salary, (8) justification

It would be a very unruly form with way too many columns if I just kept adding fields linearly even using branching logic.

**Eventually, I would like fields 1-4 as parent row and 5-8 as children but my primary concern is a user friendly form.

Please help if you can. Thank you.

Ric T

Hi @SaniaMarco,

An idea here - if your primary concern is user-friendly form, you could have your form setup when No is selected in the "More than 1 project? Y/N", display a field box Text/Number Multi-line text box (example below):

This would mean someone on the backend will need to manually transfer this into the parent/children rows and columns later on. From experience, I recommend setting up your form with branching logic to cover the majority use-case of your end-users (e.g. if 50% have at least 2 projects, create those 2 linear fields to cover them).

Cheers,

Ric

SaniaMarco

@Ric T

That was a great suggestion, I did try it, but I think that leaves too much room for error when manually transferring the data. Another idea: What about a blank SmartSheet on a dashboard that can be submitted/updated with a submit button or save button app script like in google sheets? Does SmartSheet have that function? Or can we add a visible google sheet to a dash? I've never tried that. I would need to make sure that the data is moved to another sheet upon submit so there is no way that data can linger for others to see. I guess I could just link a google sheet and then use data shuttle. I'm not sure the best way to go about it.

Ric T

Hi @SaniaMarco ,

Yes you can absolutely embed a google sheet in your dashboard. This can be done by copying your shareable google sheet link and adding it Smartsheet's Web Content widget. However, I haven't tried or seen a save button app script where the data is saved and prevent others from seeing previous entries. Curious to hear if that works.

Cheers,

Ric