Smart Header Rows - Feature request

Header Rows that group and/or describe the rows beneath them are very useful (especially in to-do lists) but they could be better in a couple of ways:

1. Allow users to designate rows as 'header rows' that are exempt from conditional-formatting, auto numbering and date-created fields, etc.

2. Allow a line's postion relative to a header row to update or populate a field accordingly (or vice-versa). For example, items under a 'High Priority' header could automatically be designated high-priority in the priority column OR updating a priority column field as high priority could move the line to the appropriate section (useful in form submissions).

3. Allow users to FREEZE header rows. It would be great to be able to scroll down through a long list while still seeing the header under which the tasks are grouped. This function would be great for any row items with sub-tasks.

Bonus: Building this out, it would be fantastic to also have a 4th option for viewing task rows. We already have Sheet, Gantt & Calendar - I'd love a card or post-it view. This view could put row item cards (with selected fields, discussions, attachments and even subtasks) into columns that mirror these Smart Headers. Users could drag and drop cards into appropriate groupings.

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Forms

Sheets

Formulas

Integrations

Conditional Formatting

Enhancement Request

Comments

Travis

Hi Lee - Thank you for all the suggestions! I will pass these along to our product team.

A couple of notes:

1. You could have a column that identifies a row as a parent row then set for your formatting rules to omit rows that are designated as parent rows. For example, add a Checkbox column to your sheet with this formula in each cell (Change [Task Name1] to the corresponding Primary column cell) which will check the box if it is located in a parent row: =IF(COUNT(CHILDREN([Task Name]1)) > 0, 1). You can then add a parameter to your formatting rule to omit any row where that box is checked.

Bonus: Card view is something the product team is looking into right now. I don’t have any details on when this would be available but it is something they are working on.

Brian Kelly

Hi Travis, Number 3 above (freezing a row) is a huge problem. If we have any kind of header rows, web form submissions will push the header row down. It's painfully annoying. This seems like such a simple fix. Please move this to the top of your development list.

Travis

Thanks for the suggestion, Brian! I will submit your request to our Product team!

Denise ElSebai

I'm requesting the smart header rows as well. With the limited number of characters in the column header name field having the ability to create additional headers and freeze them is important. I second moving this up to the top of the priority list.

Thank you!

Denise ElSebai

Alan Greenway

I vote for freezing columns and rows as well. Very useful feature when you have a long sheet and a lot of rows.

Travis

Thanks Denise and Alan, I have added your votes!

Fei-Fei Ma

Aility to freeze columns and rows is critical.

But I also just found a workaround by editing the 'column title' (property). At least it addressed my need for now.

JohnHinkle

Fei-Fei, columns can be frozen by right clicking on the column header and selecting Freeze Column.

Fei-Fei Ma

Hi JohnHinkle,

yes, I understand thatcolumn can be frozen. But I am trying to freeze the top row which is not available, now I can use the workaround (by editing column title). Although this workaround still does not completely meet my need.

Stan Adell

If I am understanding this correctly, this was the first thing I noticed and suggested when I started using Smartsheet. In Excel if there is nothing in an adjoining row the text will flow across the cells. Since that doesn't work in SS and there is no way to merge cells, the sheet grows vertically when wrapping long titles and is very limiting.

Sue Fabre

I'd like to add my vote for header rows that can be frozen.

Johan Viaene

The fact we cannot use rows for titles/headers to build sections in the sheets is also for me an absolute let down. Seeing this being referenced already more than a year ago, shows limited influence of user community towards development... or am I missing something... I seem to notice limited feature additions...

Kate B

Has there been any progress on grouping header rows, or allowing sub/secondary row headers to describe a group of columns?

Thanks,

Kate

Rob Owen

It's worrying that this has been here and discussed for nearly 4 years, but as a new user, I'm finding the exact same limitations, with seemingly no fix.

Many projects have multiple sub-categories, and having an 'baked-in' way of filtering these out on things such as reports, and calendar views/sync seems like a very basic requirement for a project tool.

Right now, I'm faced with two choices - I flatten all my projects, or unnecessarily sync all my sub headings to my Google cal, when in reality it is the sub tasks which are what is required.