How to populate the first day of each month across a row and spanning multiple columns

sarahm6

I'm trying to set up a budget tracking worksheet. In Excel, it's very straightforward to have the month populate at the top of the table in one row. The columns advance by 1 month and span 12+ months. Then each row in the table is a specific person on the project and the data within the table is the persons forecasted allocation % for each month of the project.

I cannot figure out how to do this in Smartsheet. What I want is:

• Populate the start month of the project by linking to another general "project information" sheet, so this way I just have to populate the start month one time and it flows into all the other sheets.
• Advance each column heading by 1 month based on the start month of the project.

It seems this cannot be done in Smartsheet because in order for date formulas to work the column type must be the "Date" type. If I make every column a Date type, the date formulas work but then I cannot add the % allocation per resource because it just makes it a date rather than a value.

Is there a way to achieve this type of grid in Smartsheet?

Paul.Woodward

Editing…..

Apologies.

sarahm6

@Paul.Woodward Thanks, but this does not work, because the column type must be "date" in order for date formulas to work. When I type in your Column3 formula I get the #INVALID DATA TYPE error. What am I missing?

Paul Newcome

@Paul.Woodward Please double check your source(s). Your response includes features that Smartsheet does not actually support.

Paul Newcome

@sarahm6 Exactly what is the eventual purpose of having the dates across the top row?

sarahm6

@Paul Newcome This is historically how I've always set up a labor forecast in Excel, so it's the format I'm most familiar with.

Paul Newcome

So the purpose is strictly visual? Are you planning to reference them later in other workflows or formulas?