Linking sheets through dropdown box

Is it possible to create a dropdown box which draws it's items from the primary column of another sheet? I am putting together a system for managing the data related to my staff members including workplans, professional development and reporting. On each sheet I would like to be able to ask the staff member to choose their name from a dropdown box. this list of names needs to be drawn from a master sheet, so that if I add a new staff member on the master it automatically appears on the other lists. This is only one way I which I would like to be able to link different sheets with this functionality across a broad range of topics.

Can it be done and if so, how?

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Comments

Atus Bartal

Dear Beryl,

Unfortunately: NO.

I and many others are waiting eagerly to use a functionality in Smartsheet like this.

See also (and in many related discussions): https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/drop-down-list-data-column-another-sheet

Some quotes:

"must have feature"

"... would prevent me from buying database software"

"otherwise Smartsheet is just a toy"

"a large number of users would benefit from"

Travis wrote on May 4, 2015: "Dynamic lists isn’t something we are currently working on but we are tracking feedback for this request and I will pass this thread along to our product team!" - I do hope the product team has been very active meanwhile not only in tracking users' feedback but also in code writing... Scanning through the Community discussions, I can hardly see another feature the folks are waiting so much. It would make Smartsheet a good alternative to database softwares.

I hope someday we'll have it...

Atus

Travis

Beryl, As Atus pointed out, there is not a built in way to link a Dropdown List to a column in another sheet but this is possible with a third party app - Azuqua.

You mentioned you want to have new staff members automatically added to your Dropdown Lists so they can select their names. Have you considered using Contact List columns instead?

Contact lists will auto-resolve user's names based on, who is assigned to tasks in the sheet, who is shared to the sheet, who is in your Smartsheet Contacts, and who is a member of your team.

If you add the new staff member to your team, then they will just need to start typing their name in the Contact List cell and Smartsheet will auto-resolve their information.

You can then use the Contact List for things like Resource Management, Reporting, and Reminders.

J. Craig Williams

Beryl,

As Travis mentioned, this is possible in Azuqua.

If you'd like a demo, contact Richard at

richardr@smarterbusinessprocesses.com

Tell him Craig sent you.

Craig

Stephan Lafrance

Knowing that Azuqua can do it, I'm still requesting (or vote for) the ability, directly in Smartsheet, to create dropdown lists dynamically from a column on a different sheet. Furthermore, I wish for this ability to have a filter. For example, in my timesheet, the Project column is a Dropdown list of all projects (from my master projects sheet) that have a Status of "Open".

Without having to re-create filters directly functionality when you define the dropdown, you could just add the ability to use an existing filter from the "master" sheet.

Without filters, this ability is still useful, though not as much. So please consider filters as well when you consider this functionality.

golfpromal

Two years later. Is this feature still missing from Smartsheet?

Jack SSCR

Think so. It looks quite achievable with the API and I will try to develop a solution myself. If I am successful I'll share it with you.

J. Craig Williams

Which SDK do you intend to use?

Craig

JeremiahHorstick

Travis,

I built www.ddupdate.com to do exactly this.

Have you checked it out?

-J

Jose Munoz

Can you do Dynamic combo dropdown list with DDUpdate? I bought the monthly plan to test and I can only make and keep the list for 1 dropdown not combo

Jose Munoz

Apparenlty, very unfortunate

JeremiahHorstick

No. Functionality for Dynamic or Nested Dropdowns is not currently supported.

Andrée mentioned this functionality being released by Smartsheet. Is that so?

Andrée Starå

JeremiahHorstick

Jack,

Dropdown options are assigned on the column level. To create dropdown options based on the selection of a prior option, this would require being able to set the options on the row level, which is not supported by the API.

-J