Selecting the best Smartsheet for your project

Alison Smith

I need to make sure I am selecting the correct smartsheet workspace for my project. I am trying to create a workspace to track and share client implementation. How do I add a Start date and then the sheet automatically adds task dates, as well as deadline, completion percent dates without having to add all manually. I seem to be manually adding everything. I have a formula added to make the deadline dates to be a certain amount of days out from the project start date however I am adding each date in for the start date.

I want to make sure that I am utilizing the correct sheet for my specific needs.

My dashboard isnt calculating the dates as a count down and I need them to.

Melissa Yamada

You’re manually adding dates because your sheet isn’t set up as a Project Sheet.

Do this:

1. Open the sheet → Project Settings
2. Turn on Dependencies
3. Use these columns:
   • Start Date (Date)
   • Duration (Duration)
   • End Date (Date – auto)
   • Predecessors
   • % Complete

How it works:

• Enter one Start Date at the project (parent) row
• Enter Durations and Predecessors for tasks
• Smartsheet automatically calculates all task dates

Dashboard countdown:
Add a helper column:

=[End Date]@row  - TODAY()

Bottom line:
You don’t need a different workspace — you need dependencies enabled so Smartsheet handles dates automatically.