Copy/Paste Columns with Drop Down Lists in the Same Sheet

I have a large sheet with dozens of columns, each intended to have cell drop-down selections (team member assignments) with 20 choices in the drop-down menu for each cell. There does not seem to be any way to copy/paste the column with the drop-down menus within the SAME sheet (not to another sheet). Therefore, the only option available seems to be to manually recreate each drop-down menu within each cell…across hundreds of cells. This is quite tedious and incredibly time consuming. This copy/paste function would seem to be a pretty straightforward task to automate, and I would like to believe it would be part of Smartsheet's basic functions. I've searched online forums for a solution to no avail, and I sincerely hope you can help. Expensive third party "add-on" software is not an option. Looking forward to the advice of this community. Thank you.

Answers

  • ChristianFinke
    ChristianFinke ✭✭✭✭✭

    Hey @jmiller

    Smartsheet doesn’t allow copying columns with drop-down lists within the same sheet directly. A workaround is to go into Column Properties for one of your drop-down columns, copy the list of options manually, and paste it into the settings for each new column. It’s still somewhat manual, but it’s quicker than recreating each list from scratch. Hopefully, Smartsheet will add this in the future!

    Let us know if you'd like help building anything out!

    CHRISTIAN FINKE

    cfinke@digitalradius.com

    Schedule a Meeting

  • This is a needed function and surprising it doesn't already exist. In addition to copying the column properties (like a drop-down list), copying conditional formatting and adjusting for the new column would be exceedingly helpful.