SMARTSHEET MERGE, HIDE SPECIFIC COLUMNS

Mariniel Bautista

I built a Fund Allocation Request form that makes people produce PDF for printing at the end of the process.  To be able to produce the PDF, I use Smartsheet Merge.  But I ran into an issue of confidentiality.  Since the form is a finance thing, we don't want the users to see how much funds are requested for each items.  Yet the sheet should be shared to users so they can use it during Smartsheet Merge.  I solved the problem in the sheet since it can hide columns.  But then in smartsheet merge part where I need to choose columns to merge, the columns I hide are still appearing, which made the hiding of columns in smartsheet useless.

Any ideas how I can turn this around?  Screenshots are provided below.  Grid and Smartsheet and Smartsheet Merge.  The amount is the one I need to hide.

Andrée Starå

Hi Mariniel,

I'd recommend using either cell-linking or cross-sheet formulas to another sheet and using that sheet as the MERGE source.

Would that work?

Have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant @ Get Done Consulting

Mariniel Bautista

Hi Andree.  If I do that, will the "Amount Column" still be able to be included in the merge?  Since the form for printing still needs the "Amount" whether its hidden or not.

Andrée Starå

Not sure I follow!

Will the amount be visible in Google Sheets?

Mariniel Bautista

Hi Again Andree.  The process is like this:

1.  The users will fill up a Smartsheet Form (Fund Allocation Request Form) .

2.  The data from the form will populate the Smartsheet Grid. (this is the usual thing).  The smartsheet Grid is shared to all users and I was able to hide the confidential contents/column.  I can control what they can see from this database.  I hide the amount column here.

3.  The user will go to a google docs where the soft copy of the form (this is the form to be printed) is located.

4.  User will launch the Google Add On which is the Smartsheet Merge.

5.  User will proceed on using the Smartsheet Merge feature to get the data from the Smartsheet Grid and populate the google docs form.  If you are familiar with Smartsheet Merge, everytime you select a row to merge into your form, the whole source sheet will open so you can choose a row.  In this process, even if I hide the specific columns from Step 2, the columns I hid are still visible in this process.  And that's what makes hiding the columns in Step 2 useless since they can still see the information I hid in this step which is my current problem now.

6.  User will generate the merged doc and print it.  All the data input from Step 1 should appear in the printed form.

 

Andrée Starå

Ok.

But, the user will still see the information in the Google Doc, right?

What is the reason that you don't want it to be visible in the merge selection, but it's ok inside Google Doc?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something?