Remove Cell Link Automatically

jbaranski

Is there a way to remove a cell link automatically (with a workflow or otherwise)?

I built a time sheet in Smartsheet that automatically pulls in a manager's list of direct reports from another Department sheet when their name is entered into the manager cell. Once they fill out the sheet I'd like to automatically remove the cell link so that those reports are frozen as they are instead of changing when the Department sheet is updated.

Brian_Richardson

Bridge can remove cell links, but if you don't have Bridge then no there's not a way to do this. Typically to "freeze" or snapshot data it's best to do a row copy to another sheet to use as history.

Instead of using cell links, you might instead want to use JOIN/COLLECT formulas to read the data in. You can set criteria on the row that flags when the sheet is filled out, so that the JOIN/COLLECT stops pulling data.

ie something like

= IF ( [Sheet Completed?]@row = false , JOIN( COLLECT( {Direct Reports} , {Manager}, Manager@row), CHAR(10) ) )