Workflow enhancement - copy a column/cell to another column/cell

Danielle Wilson

This is a fairly common use case for Bridge, just as a quick note!

LouizA

Also +1 for a workflow that would allow us to copy from one cell to another and allow to have a stationary piece of data separate from the changing data that is created from formulas.

ie 'last modified by' based on one specific column or by using a copy/paste automation would be clutch!

cabbsman

HI Andrée Starå, the solution does help but is not what we need. I have a workaround for the situation as well. However, I am asking for a straight and forward solution where we can use a workflow in the Smartsheet itself to do the action.

Simon Cowx

This is so needed! Its amazing it not already available as such as basic function. Please support this change as it will bring so many use cases into the scope of Smartsheet.

Caroline Elliott

I have a scenario where this capability would be perfect.

When a sponsor is initially assigned, we have a process whereby they can elect to reassign to another sponsor if required. We need to capture the original sponsor as well as the new sponsor. The ability to copy from one cell to another would prevent a more complex workflow where we copy the row to another sheet and then copy the data from a specific cell back into the original sheet.

spauliszyn

+1 vote on this idea.

This is the only way to have a running total of of a value. I want to have a column for hours worked on a task that week. Then a column that has all "Previous Hours" and a column for the sum ("Total Hours"). Then I could set a weekly automation that will copy the values in "Total Hours" into "Previous Hours" and a second action that would clear the weekly hours for the next weeks entries.

The work around is that I 'manually' copy the values from column to column--like who really needs automations anyway? I galways do things perfectly bright each time the flirst time!

tjgallan

Can't believe this doesn't already exist - especially for dates to capture them during status changes.

Sean Mc

We would love to be able to copy cell values. Our team isn't keen on audit/history sheets. Saving the original deadline an item was assigned would be a huge benefit to our post-mortems and day-to-day maintenance. We'd like to use this to track and address the "kick the can down the road" issue that holds back many of our projects.

SomeRando

On Radar · Last Updated 10/09/23

We understand that our customers leverage workflows to make their processes more efficient and the ability to copy a cell to another cell in the same sheet is an interesting idea! While this isn't on our roadmap right now, it's definitely something we'd like to hear more about. Please keep voting on this and other ideas, adding your scenarios in the comments below to help us prioritize.

@all, this is their answer above. They want to hear more about it, so just giving them a clear example is not enough. So, unfortunately you will not get this until them deem it fit outside their core/primary customers that give them the most money. Based on what I've seen so far, if you're in the bottom tier of customers (think of it as less than 1-5k/month), then note that your feature will be a random lottery pick in the magical universe of the unknown.

I will say this, fear not general community. With Jira Product Discovery and Office365 suite (PowerAutomate, Enhanced Excel Online (new functions, enhanced PowerQuery, etc), Forms, and other visual options), you don't have to be shackled by Smartsheets. You just need to identify your requirements and work from the bottom up with either of these tools.

Good luck, and don't hold your breath on the Product Team viewing this anytime soon.

Filip Teugels

Would the option to have in a workflow the option to fill the other column with {column original value} between brackets be an option?

This would mean that you can build a "rule" when you want to have an original value from a column you want to keep in a static column.

This way it is all in one sheet and not in helper sheets to have 1 sheet updated (as proposed by Andrée Starå)

Regards,

Filip Teugels

I had this as example

Is there a way we could work in an automation flow with "{Get.Value{Source column}}".

My "Source Column" is a Lookup column that checks an ID on another result table "Yesterday changes only", so if one of my ID's appear in that list I need the value to catch and leave it unchanged for tomorrow where in above result table the ID is not listed anymore.

mes2057

Hi, I love how SS allows transferring/copying info from one Smartsheet to another, however, it would make life a lot easier if we could pick and choose what we wanted to transfer instead of having to hide columns once they have all been transferred over.

Danielle Wilson

@mes2057 You might consider trying to use DataMesh for this! Since you can then pick which of the columns you want to copy to another sheet.

mes2057

@Danielle Wilson just saw a video on it and it looks super cool/helpful, however, our business version of SS does not include that feature unfortunately.

Adam Jeffries

+1 I want this. More specifically, I'm trying to record baseline hours which triggers when a project baseline is reset, and this would help me do that.