Insert row does not auto-fill

J. Craig Williams

I thought this worked before, but maybe I am mistaken.

When I insert a row (using the right-click menu, the row drop down, or the insert key), the formula from above and below the new row do not auto-fill.

 

I really don't remember seeing that before.

 

Craig

Atus Bartal

Hi Craig,

 

Formulas don't auto-fill unless you type something in the row and press enter. 

Help says: "Formatting and formulas will generate as soon as you press [Enter] or [Return] on your keyboard after typing into a new or blank row in a sheet. "

 

Do you mean that?

 

Atus

J. Craig Williams

Hmm.

I tried that before and it did not work. 

I tried just now on a different sheet and it did.

Now I need to remember which sheet was the culprit.

 

Craig

JLC

Thanks Craig for asking this question - as you may recall, I was having quite the issue with autofilling when new web forms were submitted. I can't remember if I ever followed up with you about your suggestions, but I've taken to just manually draging the formulas down each time as the auto is so inconsistent!

Travis

Craig, if you find the sheet and can reproduce this, would you share it with me so I can take a look?

 

travis.hannon@smartsheet.com

J. Craig Williams

I will.

 

Craig

Tim Meeks

Craig,

I have been workign on solution where I need the formula to copy down the row and I thought I saw it did that once too.  However, I've been too busy to replicate and confirm.

 

Like Jaye...for now, i've got a note above those columns to copy down the formulas.

 

I'll follow this post to see what transpires.

 

thanks,

Tim

 

P.S. Travis.. for those of us who are horrible spellers, spell check in the Community posts would be great!!!

 

 

J. Craig Williams

If the new row is not at the top or bottom of the sheet, does the formula formatting need to be in BOTH above and below rows to copy over?

If yes, then at least I know why my system isn't working.

 

I found the sheet, thought I had a reproducible behavior that did not make sense (10 rows, all with formula, insert between, did not come over) ... but then it started working, except when i want to insert a row at the end of a section.

The next section starts with a header row, no formula. The sections are indented.

Starting from the last row in a section, I can insert above with formula auto-fill, but not insert below.

Same with first row of next section, can insert below with auto-fill, but not above.

The row without the formula breaks the system.

 

Sharing a sheet with you Travis.

 

Craig

 

Tim Meeks

Craig,

 

The below is from SS Help.  I did find, the auto-fill did NOT fill down the formula when I dragged a row from the top that came in from a webform and inserted it in between 2 rows that contain the formulas.  I may experiment more with it and let you know.

 

Here's what help says:

 

http://help.smartsheet.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1641473-auto-filling-formulas-and-formatting

"You'll see the formatting and formulas populate automatically when:

• Typing into a newly inserted or a blank row directly in between two others that have the same formatting applied.

 

• Typing into a newly inserted row at the very top of the sheet, if it's above two others that have the same formatting applied. This includes rows inserted via web form.

 

• Typing into a newly inserted or blank row at the very bottom of the sheet, if it's below two others that have the same formatting applied. This includes rows inserted via web form.

TIP: Another way to think of auto-fill formulas is automatic drag-fill.

Formatting and formulas will generate as soon as you press [Enter] or [Return] on your keyboard after typing into a new or blank row in a sheet. It will also generate when new rows are submitted via web form. Formulas and formatting will continue to populate in hidden and/or locked columns when new rows are submitted. Override auto-fill formatting by applying your own, typing over formulas, or clearing the cell content."

J. Craig Williams

Thank Tim.

 

My recollection removed the "between" and I believed the auto-fill worked looking at either above OR below for the formatting.

Age or feature updates, both sometimes come with unexpected results.

 

Craig

Joe Williams

This is absolute NONSENSE!!!!!!!!!  

 

You cannot make auto-fill work contigent on user actions.  That's a good way to break any business.  Users should not have to use a sheet in some kind of "special" way to get it to work. Users have no idea about the two row rule, and you cannot rely on users knowing this stuff.  They just click and start entering data.  That should be good enough.  

Our entire business now cannot rely on formulas because we can't be certain that auto-fill is going to work at any given time.  

 

 You need to fix this, smartsheet. 

 

PMOARZ

Hi friends,

 

I am facing this issue. I deliver an Area with sheets (schedule, risks, ...) for every project in the company. Many of these sheets have formules such as expected date, expected % that are locked to the project manager and are used for me to have some statistics about projects.

 

The point is that these formules never get copied to the newer rows in the schedule.

 

It´s an issue that may make me evaluate other solutions to our company, and I really don´t want it.

 

Is there anybody that can help me?

 

 

 

Shaine Greenwood

Hello,

 

Formulas will only auto-fill on rows when the formula exists in two rows above, two row below, or one row above and one row below on the same hierarchical level. You must also enter information somewhere else on the row for the formula to auto-fill. (The row can't be blank.)

 

If you're meeting all of these requirements and your formulas aren't auto-filling, I'd recommend contacting our Support team to troubleshoot further: https://help.smartsheet.com/contact

Soren

The auto-fill requirement to be on the same level of insert (ie, child depth) results in unexpected behavior when inserting rows (ie, using the insert button or right-click insert) when inserting above or below collapsed parent menus.  If the section is expanded, the inserted row will auto-indent to the right child depth and the auto-fill will work as expected.  However, if the parent menu is collapsed, the auto-fill indent will not have two consecutive rows at the same indent depth and the auto-fill doesn't work.

Suggestion: column parameters might enable specifying formula behavior (like disabling the two consecutive rule or caring about child intent levels -- often cells will just have row or range-specific formulas that are consistent for the entire column and auto-complete is the expected/required behavior)

Michael Wilkesen

This feature does not work consistently. I am inserting new rows below (with at least two rows above) and find that only a portion of the formulas copy into the new row. Copying an entire row (full of data and formulas) and pasting it into the "new row," then deleting the duplicate data, just to have all of the formulas populate, should not be my solution. Because SmartSheet is inconsistent, that unfortunately is my only proven solution.

Marcin P

I have a sheet where forms are adding row from top and one formula is copied automatically without any problems but the other one is not.

More than simple question: oh dear, WHY?