Today's Date in a Dashboard

Scottf06

Hi,

 

I have recently gotten into using Dashboards within Smartsheet, amazing. Is there a way to display today's date in a widget?

 

Thank,

Scott

Josh Garcia

Hi Scott. You could populate a sheet with the formula "=today()", and use a metric widget to populate that value to the dashboard.

If you want something more complex, like embedding it into a sentence, you could leverage concatenation and date formatting formulas.

Some references:

https://help.smartsheet.com/function/today

https://help.smartsheet.com/function/date

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2476826-combine-text-two-or-more-cells-simple-formula

Scottf06

Hi Josh,

 

I'll check out the references you listed. I have tried using the =today() approach in another sheet, but unless I am missing something, you have to open that sheet in order for the date to change on the dashboard. I tried this last week, on March 15th. This morning I opened my dashboard and the date read "March 15, 2019". After I opened the sheet which contained the date, it updated and populated my dashboard correctly. 

Having a date, and even a time option on the dashboard seems like it would be a valuable addition. My team has come to rely on our Development Dashboard and I would love to make it even more useful.

Josh Garcia

I see what you mean. Unfortunately, I don't have a better answer, and from research, it looks like an existing issue. See the response in the community post below from J. Craig.

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/formula-todays-date

Josh Garcia

One more note - looks like J. Craig found a workaround leveraging a third party app called Zapier.

http://ronin-global.com/2017/03/15/forcing-today-refresh-in-smartsheet/

Andrée Starå

Hi Scott & Josh,

Zapier is excellent, and an automatic way for it but another way would be to use an update request to update daily and then today's date would update as well.

Let me know which method you prefer, and I can give more information.

Best,

Andrée

Scottf06

Josh & Andree,

 

Thanks guys, I will check it out! I appreciate the help.

 

Scott

Prakash

Hi Andree,

Please can you give a bit more information on "use an update request to update" as I can see a similar option in the edit interaction drop down menu. How do I do this interesting option?

 

Andrée Starå

Scott,

Happy to help!

Best,

Andrée

Andrée Starå

Hi Prakash,

In short!

You'd set up a daily update request in a helper sheet called Today where you would have a cell linked to all other sheets that need to be updated.

Let me know if I can help in any way!

Have a fantastic day!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant @ Get Done Consulting

Prakash

Hi Andree,

Thank you for the pointers.

I have now set up a helper sheet with today and an update request.

I could not figure out how I will make the sheet do some thing like : Date = Date +1. 

The screen shot of update request is attached for referenece.

Kind regards,

Prakash

Andrée Starå

Happy to help!

There is a second way to create an update request where you can select that it should send recurring (Daily). If you go to the Row Menu and choose to Send Update Request for a row and cell, we can call Today and then link that cell to the other sheets that should update.

Best,

Andrée

sahilhq

Hi Andree, 

I am struggling with the same issue. Please can you elaborate further on how the row and cell can be updated automatically once an update request is sent? From my understanding, an update request is basically an email to the person to whom we are requesting the update from. Is there a way to automatically update dates for a smartsheet on a daily basis without a manual update from someone daily?

Andrée Starå

Hi Sahil,

You would have to answer the update request but if you get it on mobile or in the web version, it's quick.

Hope that helps!

Have a fantastic day!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant @ Get Done Consulting

Christopher Patton

I know that this thread was posted some time ago, but as I was attempting to do this same thing, I came across it and thought I would share the solution I came up with in case anyone else happened upon the thread trying to do the same.

I made two sheets both with the same column setup, one was empty, one has the current date using a couple of date formulas and VLOOKUPS to change the numeric results into text:

=VLOOKUP(WEEKDAY(TODAY()), [Day-Number]:[Day-Name], 2, false) + ", " + VLOOKUP(MONTH(TODAY()), [Month-Number]:[Month-Name], 2, false) + " " + DAY(TODAY()) + ", " + YEAR(TODAY())

I made a column in this sheet to use for automation, and in the first blank row entered a unique value (I just used a number, "123456", but it could be anything. I then used an automated workflow task in the sheet with the data: The trigger is when a date is reached, and it repeats every day, and is set for 4:00am. The conditions are for the column set up for automation when the row contains the unique value I specified (123456). The action to perform is to move this row to the blank sheet that I made that is a structural duplicate of this sheet.

In that second sheet (which now has one row of data in it with that unique value in the automation column), I made another automated workflow task: The trigger is when a date is reached, and it repeats every day, and is set for 5:00am. The conditions are for the column set up for automation when the row contains the unique value specified (123456). The action to perform is to move this row back to the original sheet with my current date data in it.

What this will accomplish is to move data back and forth forcing Smartsheet to automatically enter and save the sheets in question, thus refreshing the calculated date and updating your Dashboard. Of course if anyone has any easier methods, I'd love to hear them! And I think it would be wonderful for the current date/time functionality to be built into the Dashboard widgets, I think it adds a very nice element of professionalism to have them present when looking at them.

~Chris

jmo

Has anyone come up with an easier method of getting today's date show up on a dashboard other than creating an automation workflow or doing the VLOOKUP that was mentioned above?

This can't really be that hard, can it? 😋 (from a guy that has a problem even manipulating the simplest formulas).