Exporting/Sharing Filtered and Indented Sheet View

Graham Cunningham

I'm looking to find a way to share a filtered view of a project with a supplier. I would like to either share a live view or schedule sending an updated version of the project plan weekly.

The issue I'm running into is that there doesn't seem to be a way to to do this in a way that the rows are both filtered and indented.

Dynamic View or using a Report doesn't have indented rows so the tasks/subtasks are confusing. Exporting with data shuttle doesn't preserve indentations either.

Exporting via Excel only hides filtered rows but still includes them in the sheet.

Exporting with a PDF works but there doesn't seem to be a way to automatically apply the filter before sending.

Does anyone have a good solution or workaround for this? It seems like a pretty basic function so I wouldn't be surprised if I'm missing something.

jmyzk_cloudsmart_jp

Hi @Graham Cunningham

You’re right — this is a common challenge when sharing a clean, filtered, and indented view of a project in Smartsheet. Here's a two-part workaround that may help:

1. Add a "Breadcrumb" helper column to simulate hierarchy in Reports

Since reports don’t preserve indentation, you can create a helper column to show the hierarchy using the ANCESTORS() function: (Take a look at the bottom image for the Breadcrumb helper column)

=JOIN(ANCESTORS([Task Name]@row), "> ")

This will generate a breadcrumb-like path e.g., Project > Phase 1 > Task, which helps make task relationships clearer even without indentation. Add this column to your source sheet and include it in the report.

https://app.smartsheet.com/b/publish?EQBCT=9f7c4bccf1b54686b4b880cc69864c4a

(This report image shows rows with Status <> Complete filter)

2. Publish a Filtered Sheet View — with Limitations

Publishing a sheet is a way to show a live view on a dashboard with indents and filters preserved, but with one major caveat:

Anyone with access to the published link can change filters, so it's not ideal for hiding sensitive data.

If that's unacceptable, I wouldn’t recommend this method for external suppliers unless you trust them to only view what’s needed.

https://app.smartsheet.com/b/publish?EQBCT=27547d1a746a424f9c7eca8013aa4f2d