Build report within a specific sheet?

I've been setting up a standard highlight report (sheet) and have built links from my risk, issues and exception logs. Everything is working great so far but I want to automate some additional logic.

I now want to bring in a list of 'deliverables' that have been completed during a specific period and then identify any that have not been delivered as per agreed timeline plans. I have setup the deliverables list and can run a report which pulls through the selections based on date (and a status flag).

Rather than having to then copy these rows (from the report), I wondered if there was a way to bring them into my highlight report (which is a standard sheet).

I did look at cell linking but the deliverable and non-deliverables will vary from month to month so I need a dynamic way of linking multiple rows and inserting them into my highlight report 'sheet'

The deliverables report is doing exactly what I need it to, just not within the highlight report (sheet).

I also need to get the section within the highlight report to auto 'add rows' to take the data that I am trying to bring it as some weeks there will only be a couple of deliverables, other weeks there will be more.

I'm not convinced that this is currently possible with SS, if not then maybe the developers can look at a way to highlight multiple rows within an existing sheet and select 'build report'.

Thanks in advance!

Phil

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Comments

Amy Johnson

Hi Phil, I am a little confused by your use of the word "report" so excuse me if you know of this functionality already!

Do you know about Smartsheet Reports? Reports can pull in data from a sheet (or multiple sheets) based on criteria you set. Reports update automatically whenever they are opened or refreshed so they always show accurate data (like new rows meeting your criteria) and the data is editable.

You can build a report to show all the tasks from a sheet where deliverables are in a timeframe and status flag is checked (for example). You can pull in rows by almost any aspect of your sheet.

Heres a help center article on creating reports: http://help.smartsheet.com/customer/en/portal/articles/522214-creating-reports

Phil Smith

Hi there

I've probably confused things by using the term 'report'.

I have a 'sheet' which I am pulling information from other sheets (linked items) and I then publish this as a PDF (my users know this as a highlight report as it pulls the key information from other sheets called: project plan, risk log, issues log etc). It is just a sheet with lots of linked cells.

I have looked at creating a 'report' within the "reports" module but from what I can see it is limited on allowing me to customise the layout as it's based on a row per results.

What I need to be able to do is to bring in a list of information from a sheet into another sheet (the information being 'text'). I can do this with linked cells but my list of information can change. It can be a few rows or it could be over 10 rows. The 'reports' module provides a stepping stone in that it will filter my list based on criteria that I set. I then want this filtered list of information to be linked to me main sheet.

Does anyone have any sample reports that aren't just based on rows or am I right in thinking that the reports module is pretty limited in customisng the output?

Amy Johnson

Reports are great at aggregating rows from multiple sheets but if you are trying to grab a specific cells from multiple rows and organize them on specific rows, it might not be the best tool.

You might find reports are helpful for showing certain data but you will still use cell linking to show other data. I would give them a try and see if they are something that can be helpful for part of your workflow.

J. Craig Williams

Phil,

A couple of things to be aware of:

The Smartsheet team is working on a major overhaul to the "Dashboard" features. I've got my fingers crossed that I'll be able to tes the beta (coming soon!)

In the meantime, your sheet for keeping meetings focused and management informed is the way to go. I like the term "Dashboard" so that's what I'm referring to below.

For your deliverables problem, one method I have used is to add a flag when things are going astray, create a report that pulls those things in, and then on the dashboard, I add a link to that status and a hyperlink to the report.

If there is nothing to discuss, the flag will be empy and so will the report. If not, the flag shows up and it is one click to show the issues.

This gives me the report feature without too much overhead and maintenance.

Hope that helps.

Craig