Value in same row, different column

Dan Engerer

Hi. My ultimate goal is to list the next upcoming task in a project. I have found a way to find the date of said task by creating a new column and searching for the minimum due date of all tasks which are not yet checked "done" (this was a ridiculous undertaking in and of itself, but oh well). My next task is to return the name of said task.

If I could just get the value of the corresponding task name cell (which is in the same row as the date but a few column over, of course), then that would work. 



On a side note, I'm pretty dissapointed in the difficulty just to do things like find the next upcoming task in a project. It's a throwback to excel, and should absolutely be a built-in functionality within Smartsheet. I thought smartsheet was dedicated to project management? Why then does it require so many workarounds to do really basic things?



Anyways, If there's no easy solution to this particular issue, I'm going to go ahead and cancel my subscription. It's too hard to do basic things in Smartsheet, and complexity is the enemy of implementation.  If I have a hard time doing these things, imagine how my my managers will feel in the future.

So, let's see what happens. 

JeremiahHorstick

The VLOOKUP function will do it. 

https://help.smartsheet.com/function/vlookup

Dan Engerer

Can you please elaborate?

 

How can VLOOKUP identify the next unfinished task? I wasn’t able to figure that out. 

JeremiahHorstick

Dan,

Here's some options:

Add a row called "Next task". Use your logic to find the smallest date that is not done to populate the "Next task" row as a boolean. 

IF 'due date' is the smallest, True. Use VLOOKUP to get the task name where you want it. 

The only issue you may run into is if you have multiple next tasks with the same due date. Not sure what would happen in that case. 

Run a report with the next task filtering your new row and you will see all of the next tasks.  

The simple solution:

With my project sheets I set a filter for 'done' and only show what is not done and sort by start date. My reports do the same thing.

I have a report for today, tomorrow, 1 week look-ahead, and 30 day look-ahead. 

I prefer the report because I pick up tasks from all of my project schedules. 

  

 

 

 

Paul Newcome

You can also just sort the sheet based on your two sets of criteria. Complete vs not and by date.

Dan Engerer

Hi Paul. 



But how am I able to only view the NEXT task? I don't want to see all upcoming tasks, just the next task

Paul Newcome

Are you pulling it to another sheet or displaying it elsewhere? Sometimes knowing the "why" can help in finding a solution.