Report is pulling correct results, but cells are blank

Ian Schumann

I have a set of project sheets that all share the same basic layout and format, AND also have all the same sharing permissions -- specifically, I am the owner of all of them.

 

I'm trying to generate a report that shows me all sheets with an End Date in the future for a specific task / row in the sheet. The report seems to be pulling correct RESULTS insofar as the right sheets seem to be showing up in the report -- however, some of those rows are entirely blank, whereas others are filled in correctly.

 

I've stared at this and played with it for a half hour already and I can't seem to figure out the difference between the ones showing up properly, and the ones showing up blank. If someone can help out that would be great.

Ian Schumann

And I suppose I'll need to share the sheet(s) with somebody -- let me know when you do happen to drop in. I can share the Report, as well as one sheet that is being pulled in correctly, plus one that is not.

Kennedy Stomps

Hi Ian-- I've just manually refreshed your sheets and reports from our back end, can you let me know if you're still experiencing the issue after refreshing your report? 

Ian Schumann

Thanks Kennedy! It's all filled in now -- problem looks to be solved.

 

Question though: WHY was this necessary? And in the future are we going to be at risk of needing to request these manual refreshes again? Give me a feel for these, if you don't mind.

Kennedy Stomps

Hi Ian-- No worries, happy to help! It's likely that there was a little lag in our reporting service that meant that updated sheet data wasn't being pulled into the report as expected. It probably would have caught up eventually, but my manual refresh just "pushed" the data into the report. It shouldn't happen regularly (as in, daily) but can happen from time to time if there's a delay in our reporting service. If you do notice it again, feel free to reach out to our Support team directly at Support@Smartsheet.com and they'll be able to help troubleshoot further

Brandon Spiller

Hi Kennedy,

 

Thanks for your help. Ian is one of many users, is there a way that you can refresh all of our sheets?

 

Thanks!

 

Brandon

Ian Schumann

Thanks Kennedy, that makes sense.

 

If I understand correctly, this suggests that if we ever create a NEW report, or if we MODIFY an existing report, in either case we might have to wait a few hours (or overnight) before all rows are properly filled. Or else, request a manual refresh, as in this ticket.

 

Does that sound right? If so, that's not the best news I've ever heard, but it's at least something we can plan ahead for and work around.

Kennedy Stomps

Hi Ian-- In general, you should see the correct results in reports right away--there shouldn't be a significant lag time. Sometimes, on the server level (on our side) the reporting server lags and this causes a "disconnect" between the data on your sheets and the data flowing in to your reports. When this happens, which shouldn't be often, you'll want to let us know so we can manually resolve the issue and also investigate the delay on our end!

Ian Schumann

Makes sense, thanks again.

 

As you saw, Brandon Spiller also commented and requested that we get a global refresh of all of our sheets, across our entire shared team account. I'm only one team member, Brandon is the lead; this means my reporting was only on my 20-or-so projects, but he is pulling in many dozens of sheets for his own reporting.

 

If it's possible for you to kick off a refresh across our whole account, that would be great. Aside from that one request, everything else looks to be good on this side. Thanks again for your quick help on a Friday!

Jerry Tutt

Ian, Check your column headings.  I had the same problem but, discovered that I wasn't be consistent with naming my columns.  Therefore, if you had called the column Due Date but, request the Complete column on your report, you will not get your dates.  

Ian Schumann

Jerry,

Thanks for the tip! We did have inconsistent naming over the range of these project sheets, but we were sure to select all the variations of our column names while building the report.