Why can't I link to a date from one sheet to another?

Pamela Wagner

I'm creating a program level review of some of our projects and have created a new sheet and input various current and future projects. I would like to have dates linked in from the project plans. Note that I can't use a report for this as I am also using the new EAP Timeline view which is currently not enabled for reports (needs to be!!).

I can link to the start date (and other cells) but not the end date. While I could enter the duration (or link to it) and that will populate the end date that won't work in this case as these dates are dynamic in the original project plan so I will always need to link to both the Start and End dates. The issue here is that for the end date column in my new sheet, the "link from cell in another sheet" is greyed out. Why is this?

Paul Newcome

Why not link to both the start date and duration?

Pamela Wagner

Hi @Paul Newcome, in this case I need the start from one row and the end from another (long involved story as to why). In my view, the system should allow the end user to choose what cells they would like to pull in and not force us into a process that does not work for 100% of the use cases. I've determined a work around but really should be able to link from a cell for whatever I choose. Thinking this is probably just not something that Smartsheet will allow.

Paul Newcome

Ah. Ok. Understood.

What is your work around?

I am thinking an extra "task" in the source plan that has a SS relationship to the starting row and a FF relationship to the ending row. Then you should be able to grab Start Date and Duration from this new "task" via cell links on the master.

Pamela Wagner

At the top of my project plans I have a summary sheet for various metrics. What I would like to do on my program review is to show timelines for two specific groups: Apple Pickers and Orange Pickers so I added rows in the summary for start and end dates for both those groups and wanted to link to those cells in the plan and then link from those cells to my program review sheet. I'm hoping to keep those cells static in my templates so that I don't have to remember to update them for each project. My workaround is that by pulling the start and end dates up to the summary I can then create a duration from both of them and then I can link from the Start and the Duration to my program review. In the future, I'm going to see how to update the project plan template to create a header row for each of the Picker groups and then can use the Start and Duration from those rows, IF that will work in my plan, it might not just due to how the Apple Picker tasks start within another group's (Apple Pruner) tasks. So all of that to say - Smartsheet! Stop forcing us into use cases that don't always apply and let us link to what we want!

Kariv

I am having the same issue with needing to link to Start and End Dates (versus Duration and Start Date)- see Smartsheet Communition Discussion: Linking Tasks in Projects with Different Working Days — Smartsheet Community. Is there a reason Smartsheet doesn't allow us to link to task End Dates?