How to reference to the last row of a colum?

Risto Nykanen

Hello,

I have sheet to where I add rows with a smartsheet form so the number of rows increases. At the top of the sheet I have a metrics section where I want to sum (with a SumIF function) the rows starting from row 10 to the last row.  How can I do that?

Thanks,

Risto

 

 

Andrée Starå

Hi Risto,

You can use the new function that was just released called DESCENDANTS.

DESCENDANTS([parent_cell])

More info: https://help.smartsheet.com/function/descendants

Would that work?

Have a fantastic day!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant @ Get Done Consulting

Paul Newcome

Andree,

 

Do you know where I can find an explanation of what is considered a "descendant"? I have been playing with this to figure out exactly what all is encompassed by this function, but the results I am getting... I can't interpret them to simplify it for others because it's just not making sense to me.

Andrée Starå

The description in the Function List is the best I've found, and I haven't had time to play around with it yet.

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

Used within another function to reference all descendant rows of the referenced cell of the parent row.

The parent cell for which you want to return all descendants. If no cell is specified, the function references all descendants of the current cell.

Hope that helps!

 

Paul Newcome

I read that and even played with it in the Formula Examples Template to get a feel for it. It was definitely behaving quite unexpectedly in my opinion. I may start a new thread on it to see what other people have to say about it.

 

Thanks!

 

EDIT:

 

Here's the thread if anyone wants to add their input or follow along out of curiosity...

 

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/descendants-function

BSADK

I don't see how descendants() can be used to answer the original question?

Similar to the original, I need to reference a range from the next row to the last row. This is regardless of parent/child relationships. This particular sheet I'm using has no parent/child relationships actually. How would I reference the last row that has data?