Column Linking Not Working - What am I missing?

I'm the admin of a workspace which contains 2 sheets: 1) "Source Dropdown Sheet" which should function as master dropdown list to feed other sheets (sample a US State dropdown column), and 2) "Source Sheet 1" in which I'm attempting to link the State column to reduce copy/pasting.

However, after going through the process to link the column, I'm getting the "no results found" message (when of course there are options in my source dropdown column).

Sheet to Contain Linked Column

Source Sheet with Dropdown List

I seem to be following the instructions according to this article: https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2483625-create-linked-dropdown-columns#toc-create-a-linked-dropdown-column

Seems fairly straightforward but isn't working. Why might that be?

Thanks!

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Accepted answers

Abdul Samad Mohammad

Hello @Jenny Adkins ,

You've done the right thing by defining the list of States (Alabama, Alaska, etc.) in the Column Properties of the "State" column on your "Source Dropdown Sheet"

However, the Linked Dropdown feature does not pull its options from those column properties. Instead, it pulls the list from the unique values entered into the actual cells (rows) of the source column.

Since your "Source Dropdown Sheet" likely has an empty "State" column (no data in the rows), Smartsheet finds "no results" to link to, even though you defined the list in the background.

To make the link work, you need to populate the rows of your source sheet:

Go to the "Source Dropdown Sheet".
In the "State" column, enter each value you want in the dropdown into a separate row cell.
- Row 1: Alabama
- Row 2: Alaska
- Row 3: Arizona
- ...and so on, until all your desired States are in individual rows.
Save the "Source Dropdown Sheet."
Go back to "Source Sheet 1" and check the dropdown for your "State" column. It should now be correctly pulling the distinct values from the rows of the source sheet!

Once you do that, your link will start working perfectly. Let me know if that solves it!

All comments

Abdul Samad Mohammad

Hello @Jenny Adkins ,

You've done the right thing by defining the list of States (Alabama, Alaska, etc.) in the Column Properties of the "State" column on your "Source Dropdown Sheet"

Since your "Source Dropdown Sheet" likely has an empty "State" column (no data in the rows), Smartsheet finds "no results" to link to, even though you defined the list in the background.

To make the link work, you need to populate the rows of your source sheet:

Go to the "Source Dropdown Sheet".
In the "State" column, enter each value you want in the dropdown into a separate row cell.
- Row 1: Alabama
- Row 2: Alaska
- Row 3: Arizona
- ...and so on, until all your desired States are in individual rows.
Save the "Source Dropdown Sheet."
Go back to "Source Sheet 1" and check the dropdown for your "State" column. It should now be correctly pulling the distinct values from the rows of the source sheet!

Once you do that, your link will start working perfectly. Let me know if that solves it!

Jenny Adkins

Thanks, this worked.

I do feel like there's room for clarification in the help desk article on this.

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