URGENT - Forms problem, shortcoming

jb@59069

We use Smartsheet forms to track time and expenses. This morning I have come upon a serious problem for needed updates for one of our clients.

Entering time, employees select from radio buttons, a Phase, Project and Service. We have the following form entries and number of selection options:

Phase - 4 selections

Project - 9 selections

Service - 8 selections

However, not every Project and/or Service needs to be available for each Phase.

I.e., if Phase selection is Focus Groups, then Project should only display 2 of the Projects and only 4 of the Service selections. As is, if Phase is Focus Groups, then Project of Collateral and Service of Video are still displayed and can be selected. This causes massive problems in SUMing hours for each category since someone could select a Project or Service that would not be SUMmed and therefore provide erroneous data totals on our reports.

I assume this capability is NOT available in Smartsheet or is there something I am missing?

david voight

That is correct.  Cascading drop downs in forms is not available.  We have use other form tools such as formstack that integrate with smartsheet to overcome issues similar to this.  The tool work quite well and give you significant more functionality.  80% of the time we still use the built in form tool, but it is nice having an option

 

Alison

Hi JB,

 

Thanks for this comment; you're right that it's not available, but feel free to submit a Product Enhancement Request here.

 

In the meantime, you could check out the options that David mentioned, or you could consider using Automated Update Requests to request further information once a form is submitted based on conditions met in the form submission's data, or you could consider using our Google Forms integration.

 

I hope this helps!

 

Alison