Advice for Primary Column

Lee Joramo

What would you recommend I use as a Primary Column on this sheet? Here are my columns and their type:

• School Name: Drop Down
• Month: Drop Down
• School Year: Drop Down
• Total Volunteer Hours: Number/Text
• Submitter: Contact List
• Comments: Number/Text

Most of the columns are Drop Down or Contact Lists which can not be Primary Columns.

The two Number/Text columns do not seem to be useful for the Primary Column

In fact, I am not sure I see the value of a Primary Column in this sheet. We will not be using the Primary Columns hierarchy features for this collected data.

The data will be collected on a monthly basis.

J. Craig Williams

If you don't need the Hierarchy, you can leave it blank.

I'd be tempted to reproduce the [School Name] column 

=[School Name]@row

It would depend on what sort of Reports you are building.

Craig

Paul Newcome

Another option would be to "Hide" the column. You could also click/drag to move it in to order of where you already need a text/number column.

J. Craig Williams

Yep, what Paul said. If you aren't using Reports, just pick any Text/Number column to be the Primary.

Craig

 

Lee Joramo

Thanks that helps clarify the role of the Primary column. It is really all about hierarchy. If the sheet data doesn't have such a structure, I can ignore it

Paul Newcome

That's pretty much it. You can still use hierarchies even without populating the Primary Column as well. The primary column is where your expand and collapse buttons are housed. The only restrictions are that it will always be a text/number type, and it cannot be deleted. 

cbukowski

Unfortunately, the Primary Column cannot be hidden from card view so ignoring it from the grid view will show as "untitled" in card view, which is disappointing. Are there other suggestions for a primary column value in OP example?

Paul Newcome

@cbukowski You can use a cell reference to replicate whatever you are using to determine the lane.

=[Column Name]@row

cbukowski

Thats helpful - thanks @Paul Newcome!

Paul Newcome

@cbukowski Happy to help. 👍️