Best Practice on Joining / Linking Multiple Sheets for a Single Record

Brian McElligott

I am creating a tool in Smartsheet to coordinate multiple department areas around Event Planning. An Event involve selecting a location from various building options, space options in each building, date options, time options, catering options, table / furniture options, linen options for tables, floral options, Audio / Video options, Music options, etc. I am using a form (Event Request Form) to gather details on a requested event.

My challenge is that I have maxed out the 400 column limit in a single smartsheet due to the number of Event options. I am forced to now use different sheets and sheet forms for the various services offered (catering, furniture, floral, etc. ).

I am now trying to determine the best practice of using multiple sheets, with the goal of relating each row in the primary sheet (Event Location) to rows in other service sheets (catering for the event, furniture for the event, floral for the event). In short, I am creating a database of sheets with a primary key in the primary Event Location sheet.

Are there any inherent features in Smartsheet, or best practices, or thoughts on how best to use various sheets, joined by a common ID/number, so that a complete "Event" record can be created, using multiple Smartsheets? How can I get the primary sheet ID (an Auto Number column) into the other sheets, given that I am using forms in the other sheets to take service requests (Catering, Tables, Floral for example).

Andrée Starå

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/138940/best-practice-on-joining-linking-multiple-sheets-for-a-single-record

Hi,

I hope you're well and safe!

I'd recommend having something like this.

-Intake Form for each event
-Event Intake Sheet
-Event Asset Set with all the sheets, reports, and dashboards needed for each event. Combine all the different parts in one sheet and then connect everything with Cross-sheet formulas or the Premium App, Control Center.

Make sense?

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe, and have a fantastic day!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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Brian McElligott

Hi Andree,

Thank you for that suggestion. I have a few refining questions to make sure I understand what you are proposing, and to clarify what I have in place now.

I have a "primary" sheet with an intake form to take in event requests. The primary sheet askes all the questions, calculates all the prices and supports all the automations to the various departments for their agreement to support the event (catering, tables, floral, etc.).

I believe this is what you were referring to in your first 2 bullet points (Intake Form for each event, Event Intake Sheet). Correct me if I am mistaken.

However I am unclear on the next item, the "Event Asset Set with all the sheets, reports, and dashboards needed for each event". By "Set" do you mean folder, which would contain all the sheets, reports and dashboards?

I am reading this to understand that I would have a separate sheet for Catering, one for Tables, one for Floral, etc. Correct me if I am mistaken.

Continuing my understanding, I would need a means to connect an event in the Primary sheet (location / space for the event) to a row in the Catering sheet for catering for the same event. I need the catering team to show up at the right location / space on the right day and time. I can use formulas in Catering to pull from the Primary event sheet for location details, but I need to have criteria for the formula to know what row data to pull. Make sense?

Am I missing anything? Are you suggesting I need Control Center to make this solution work?