Unable to Run Copy/Move Automation

I have several sheets in which I utilize automations to move/copy rows from one sheet to another as the rows move through our workflows. So of course, each subsequent sheet has duplicate column names. I had to make a change that ended up completely breaking all of these move/copy automations.

The change that broke everything: Previously, my 2nd sheet was the one creating the auto numbers (the system column, of course). As our workflow has developed and grown, I wanted to change the auto numbering to happen on the 1st sheet and then just copy to each subsequent sheet from there. After this change, everything broke and I received the following error message:

Screenshot 2025-02-10 at 10.32.56 AM.png

In the past when this has happened, I ended up slightly changing the names (as a quick and dirty solution). This obviously isn't ideal because now I have multiple columns for the same information - and that's another issue I'm trying to address - combining information from 2 columns into 1.

Any idea how I can fix this and avoid it happening in the future? I need the first sheet to be the auto number-er and I'd like for all subsequent sheets to have matching column names. Rebuilding the sheets is not an option.

Thanks for any and all help! This community has been a life(sheet)-saver many times for me.

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kowal

hi @vdemattei,

I had exactly the same issue and it was as you can guess related to the naming and system columns.

So you cant avoid it unless you follow some best practice which is not giving names to the sheets that are names of system columns in destination sheets.

It's pretty logical if a system sheet cant be overwritten you cannot put there any data from the destination sheet.

vdemattei

@kowal, of course… however, the subsequent sheets are duplicates of the original, so of course there are identical names… my question is how do we fix it after it's broken? obviously, if i were to build everything again, i wouldn't have this problem, but these are sheets and workflows that are growing and changing over time, so here we are.

kowal

hi @vdemattei,

so in smartsheet we have 6 system columns: Auto number, Created by, Created Date, Modified by, Modified Date , Latest Comment. Those columns cant be edited by user but always by system.

If you have source sheet with contact list column called "Created by" and you want to copy this row to destination sheet where "Created by" is system column the system will not allow you to do that as you cant overwrite the system data.

So knowing that you need to rename columns either in destination or source sheet. Unless in both sheets the same name goes for system columns or system columns in source sheet is normal column in destination sheet.

The only fix would be rename columns in source sheets. That was the only fix for me.

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