How to set up Bridge to concatenate predecessors?

I have a document tracker that uses a simple Gantt (all FS) to track documents and their predecessors, and worst case scenario, could have up to 5 or 6. Without using helper columns to log a 'Predecessor 1', 'Predecessor 2' etc. that might lock me in to a maximum quantity (in case of more complex projects cropping up), I would like to use Bridge to concatenate all doc titles in 'Task Name' column into a 'Predecessing Documents' column, however as I'm new to Bridge, I really can't seem to figure out how to set it up. I get that I would need to use Get Row and Split Text, but from there…completely unsure!

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Paul Newcome

Ah. Ok. I understand now.

Insert an auto-number column (called "Auto" in this example). Formatting doesn't matter.

Insert a text/number column (called "Row Text" in this example) with this column formula:

=MATCH(Auto@row, Auto:Auto, 0) + ""

^ That's a "plus quote quote" there on the end.

Insert a multi-select dropdown column (called "Preds" in this example) and use this column formula:

=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(Predecessors@row, "F", ""), "S", ""), ", ", CHAR(10))

This should have just the numbers from your predecessors listed as individual "selections" within the multi-select dropdown.

Finally, the formula to output the list of documents would be something along the lines of:

=IF(Preds@row <> "", JOIN(COLLECT([Primary Column Name]:[Primary Column Name], [Row Text]:[Row Text], HAS(Preds@row, @cell)), "delimiter of choice"))

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Paul Newcome

You can enter multiple predecessors directly in the sheet if you have dependencies turned on. Why are you wanting to use Bridge to output? Are you able to provide some screenshots for context?

Alex Br

Hi, sorry if I'm explaining this poorly, but I do have predecesors set up. What I would like to do is concatenate the titles of the documents that have been selected as predecessors for easy visibility when outputting that to a report. I would have put, say Documents 1, 2, 3, 4 as predecessors (e.g. 43FS, 44FS, 60FS, 71FS), but if I wanted to show Document 5's predecessing docs, then I would like to have a column that shows the titles of Docs 1-4 in the cell for 'Predecessing Documents' next to Document 5. At the moment, I can do this by either using INDEX(MATCH) which shows the title of the first number in predecessors only, but this is too inflexible.

Paul Newcome

Ah. Ok. I understand now.

Insert an auto-number column (called "Auto" in this example). Formatting doesn't matter.

Insert a text/number column (called "Row Text" in this example) with this column formula:

=MATCH(Auto@row, Auto:Auto, 0) + ""

^ That's a "plus quote quote" there on the end.

Insert a multi-select dropdown column (called "Preds" in this example) and use this column formula:

=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(Predecessors@row, "F", ""), "S", ""), ", ", CHAR(10))

This should have just the numbers from your predecessors listed as individual "selections" within the multi-select dropdown.

Finally, the formula to output the list of documents would be something along the lines of:

=IF(Preds@row <> "", JOIN(COLLECT([Primary Column Name]:[Primary Column Name], [Row Text]:[Row Text], HAS(Preds@row, @cell)), "delimiter of choice"))

Alex Br

Wow!! I was convinced I could only do that using a Bridge based solution! Thank you so much, that's absolutely incredible! Exactly what I was looking for!

Paul Newcome

Happy to help. 👍️

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