Update Requests Limited?

Brian Dowler

I am sending update requests for a sheet that has initial items filled in by formulas - dates, as well as "Yes/No" dropdown selections.  This makes it easy for the person who starts with this template to put in suggested initial dates, then ask for exact dates from these directly involved.

 

In the sheet the editor can override the formulas and put in new dates and selections.  But, when I send an update request for certain rows, the recipient cannot change any of the cells that were intially populated by formulas.

 

Has anyone else encountered this?

 

Is there a "work around" of some sort?

Travis

Brian, one of the reasons why you cannot edit or create formulas in an update request is formulas can sometimes reference/affect cells in multiple rows. Its possible update requests contain formulas that are associated with rows not included in the request. Editing these formulas could cause unexpected results with how the formula is calculating what you see in the update request and what is accessible in the underlying sheet. There isn’t going to be a workaround right now to updated cells that contain formulas in an update request. If the user is shared to the sheet, they could edit the cells directly from the sheet. 

Brian Dowler

Thank you Travis.  I understand the issue now.

 

As a work around, I set up the sheet initially using the formulas.  Then, I select tghe parts of the spreadsheet where I want to enable updates, and do a "Cut" and "Paste Special - Values Only".  This removes the formulas and replaces the cell contents with simple data that can be changed when I send an update request..