Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Shaine Greenwood

Hi Laurie,

 

We've got a new way to submit feedback to our Product team. Check out this community announcement for more information: https://community.smartsheet.com/announcement/new-way-submit-your-feature-requests

Todd Meier

I would like to know the status of this feature to create a WBS.

Kara Lumley

Todd,

I'd be happy to go over what I have planned for this, I'd love to know if it would meet your needs. Please send me an email if that would work for you - kara.lumley@smartsheet.com

Thank you!

Kara

 

Manueladolfo Mercado

Hello Kara,

Is this something that Smartsheet will adress on one-by-one basis or is there a plan to actually deliver WBS functionality within the product?

I would appreciate your response.

Thanks,

Manueladolfo

Kara Lumley

Hi Manueladolfo, 

I am working on the requirements for something similar to WBS and hope to get it into the development cycle soon.

Thank you,

Kara

Manueladolfo Mercado

Hello Kara, 

Thanks for your reply. We've been waiting for this feature for quite long so hearing you're right on it is good news!!

Looking forward to this roll out. Keep the great work!

 

Manueladolfo

wkwilson23

Hi, I've been waiting for the WBS addition as well. I'm managing a large portion of a project that is scheduled with MS Project on the whole (by my old school boss). The rest of our organization has adopted SmartSheet, and my team is using it to manage our portion of the project. However, our tasks align with the large project schedule, so ideally, I want the WBS to match our large schedule, so when it is updated, I only need to make minor adjustments to mine. I'm baffled as to why SmartSheet did not adopt the WBS numbering system instead of 'automatic numbering.' 

Please make some type of announcement on this soon 

Diaz

I needed WBS for a project so I just created my own.  The concept is that for each level of work flow, you will need a field to calculate that item's value and then one field to join them all together.  It's clunky but it seems to work well enough (I haven't reviewed it yet so I may find errors; let me know if you have a better WBS functions).

 Below is the 8th column and join column's formulas for your reference.  Also attached is an image to see how it comes together.

=IF($Item2 = "", 0, IF(COUNT(ANCESTORS($Item2), 1) < 8, 0, IF(AND(COUNT(ANCESTORS($Item2), 1) = 8, COUNT(ANCESTORS($Item1), 1) = 7), 1, IF(COUNT(ANCESTORS($Item2), 1) > 8, [8_WBS]1, IF(COUNT(ANCESTORS($Item2), 1) = 8, [8_WBS]1 + 1)))))

=JOIN(COLLECT([1_WBS]2:[8_WBS]2, [1_WBS]2:[8_WBS]2, >0), ".")

 

 

 

Kara Lumley

Hi all,

Thinking about an automatic outline number column and how it would work with filters - would filtering be important to you - for example, a filter that "is between" 1 and 3 that would capture 1.1, 1.1.1, up to level 3? Or filter on just top-level rows (1, 2, 3) - or would you not need to filter by outline number at all?

Thanks for the input!

Kara

J. Craig Williams

Yes.

Similar to what the Outline feature in Excel does. Some WBS's expect that a level 2 task, for example, has similar characteristics to another level 2 task somewhere else in the WBS. Some (the only commonality is that they are under level 1 -- but one may be the lowest breakdown and another still a parent to further breakdowns).

However, the more we can slice the WBS, the better, IMO.

Craig

stan.shaw33056

Hi Diaz,

I am intrigued by your solution and suspect it could be very useful. However, I've attempted to use your script, but either I'm missing something rather basic in the instructions, or there more that needs to be done in order to build it into my Smartsheet. Would you be willing to share a Smartsheet Template so that it's easier to see how this works? Or, if you could help explain how the above formulas can be into a set of rows that produce the results you've shown, it would b a great help.

There's no need to respond right away... enjoy the holiday season!

Many thanks, Stan Shaw

Andrena

I google images "work breakdown structure smartsheet" and the below image comes up. This makes it look like there is a WBS template that can be used, but from this thread and my searches, it seems as if there isn't one? Can anyone from Smartsheet explain?

dserodio

I don't need a "graphical (hierarchical boxes) WBS", for me hierarchical task ID's would be a great start.

irritatedPM

This comment is 3 years old and I don't see anything in SmartSheets to do a WBS.  SamrtSheets and all of its online competitors are severely behind the MS Project standard.  I've wasted hours trying to make this thing work.

Cliff Skene

Its a bit tough to say that Smartsheet is progressing when a comment now nearly 4 years old and a functional view like a WBS is still not anywhere on the Smartsheet map.

Where is this item at currently?  Because your support just told me to export into MS Project and then create a WBS from there.

Really?