Copy & Paste Conditional Formatting to Another Sheet - Request

Steve Johnson

While starting new projects in Smartsheet via a template is great, I often have to start a project by importing an MS Project file.  This means that I have to replicate all of the conditional formatting that we use on all existing Smartsheet sheets.  Since we take advantage of the good conditional formatting options that Smartsheet offers, there are quite a few of these rules that have to be re-created.

 

REQUEST: Please consider adding a feature to copy/paste conditional formatting rules from one sheet to another.

Christian Wells

Can you copy the other way.

Save formated smartsheet as a template.

import your MS project file

then copy the data across to a new sheet made from the template

 

This will help you in how to copy.

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/tips-and-tricks-copying-row-another-sheet

Travis

Great tip, Christian! 

 

Rather than copying from the imported sheet to the custom formatted template, you could also move the rows from the imported sheet, to the sheet created from the template. To do this, highlight the rows, right click on the row number and select Move Rows To Another Sheet. 

J. Craig Williams

Add my vote to the copy of conditional formatting rules to another sheet.

 

Craig

Steve Johnson

@Christian & @Travis

 

Thank you both for the good workarounds.  I still recommend a copy/paste functionality be added, but these solutions will certainly work in the interim.

Steve Johnson

OK.  I'm probably mistaken, but aren't predecessor relationships lost during a copy or a move?  If so, such a solution is not a solution at all.  

Steve Johnson

So frustrating.

 

1) The copy operation fails, because it discards the indents within the parent document.  For example, all 400 of my MS Project tasks appear equally indented during a copy.  However, the Move operation does not have this issue.

 

2) Predecessor relationships are lost during the Copy and/or Move.  However, you can do a secondary copy/paste to populate the predecessor column of the destination.  This should not be necessary, but it is. 

JohnHinkle

I understand that predecessors are not include when you copy rows between sheets. Predecessor values are looking to tasks on specific rows. When you move rows between sheets, the row order will likely change which would make the predecessor wrong.

 

You might say, if you copy over the row and the predecessor row it should know they are connected and update the predecessor value based on the row in the destination sheet. But what if you dont bring over the predecessor row? Should the Move Row feature update predecessors sometimes but not other times? I think that would be a poor experience for users. Consistency is better from a UX point of view. 

Steve Johnson

@JohnHinkle

 

Why not have any single move operation retain any predecessor that is, itself, included in the move?  Then, the user experience would simply be to collapse the original schedule down to the top-most summary task and then move that single task to the new sheet.  Problem solved.

 

In addition, this whole activity is only necessary due to the lack of a conditional formatting copy/paste feature.  If such a feature existed, I wouldn't bother with this operation in the first place.

JohnHinkle

Steve, I understand your reasoning. I am trying to play devils advocate here

 

For copying conditional formatting from Sheet A to Sheet B, would this work for you:

 

-Make a copy of sheet A containing the conditional formatting (do NOT include data)

-Name the new sheet Sheet B2

-Move rows from Sheet B to Sheet B2

 

Now you have all the data from Sheet B in a sheet with the formatting rules from Sheet A

LeanneScheepers

Although the suggested workarounds work, please do add my vote to the copy of conditional formatting rules to another sheet.

 

This would especially be beneficial when you do want to use the same formatting, but don't have all of the same columns, or if you have two mastersheets for different departments and want to apply the same conditional formatting (instead of doing the same thing twice or copying the whole sheet)

 

Marcelo Scofano Diniz

The the suggested workarounds will work in the future, now there I know it.

Unfortunately for me, I have a number of sheets already in production mode, so, my vote too. A must need enhancement.

TIA.

cliffoutlaw

Adding my vote for this much needed enhancement!

Gary M. Gordon

I also would appreciate the ability to copy "Conditional Formatting" (or export the Conditional Formatting) and then be able to import it into another sheet. This would save a tremendous amount of time if we have certain formatting that we create at a later time and want to apply it to other sheets. Please consider adding this functionality within SmartSheet (as soon as possible). To summarize, please add an export and import feature to Conditional Formatting so we can reuse the settings that we create on one sheet, on other sheets. Thank you. Gary