Add a UNIQUE() Formula Function Similar to Excel

darkmatter

It would be valuable to introduce a native UNIQUE() function to Smartsheet, similar to the functionality available in Excel.

Use case: data governance, QA, and business intelligence

As a data administrator, I frequently need to generate a distinct list of values from a column in order to validate data quality, identify inconsistencies, drive reporting, and support business intelligence activities.

For example:

Source Data
Apple
Apple
Pear
Lemon

Would return:

Unique Values
Apple
Pear
Lemon

Today, achieving this requires complex formulae for users to manually input, and is a common discussion point on Community.

A native UNIQUE() function would significantly simplify data validation, master data management, dashboard filtering, reporting, and governance processes.

This would be particularly valuable for enterprise customers managing large datasets where maintaining data quality and generating trusted reporting outputs are critical.

A Smartsheet equivalent of Excel's UNIQUE() function would provide a simple, scalable, and familiar solution for a very common data management requirement.

Matt

Paul Newcome

Have you looked into the DISTINCT function?

If you insert a text/number column (called "Number" in this example) and then manually enter numbers in this column starting wiht one and going all the way until you have covered as many as you expect to have plus a buffer, you can use this column formula to list unique values:

=IFERROR(INDEX(DISTINCT({Source Sheet List Column}), Number@row), "")

There are a number of options that will allow you to either automatically add more rows to the target sheet with the distinct list as needed or to alert you so you can manually add more rows when the distinct list is close to full.