How can I link Columns to update?

James Niven

Hi,

If I have a column named "Status" and within that column there options from a dropdown to select Open, Closed or Denied, once I select Closed or Denied, can I on the same sheet over in another column named "Date Closed" can I have the current Date entered in and that row is closed.

 

Is this possible and if so, how do I do this?

 

Thanks

Shaine Greenwood

Hello James—there isn't a way to populate the date that you've set a status in your dropdown, or to automatically "close" a row, but I can get your vote down for these on our enhancement request list for further consideration.

 

So that I'm making sure that I'm getting your feedback right, can you elaborate on how you want the row/task to "close" on your sheet? Are you looking for the row to delete itself automatically? Or automatically move to another section of your sheet under a "closed" parent row? Moved to another sheet? Or something else entirely?

James Niven

Hello Shaine, thanks for the reply!!

I believe this would a be a great enhancement feature for the future indeed.

 

At our Company we use Smartsheet to track the number of safety incidents within the different departments. We have within that row a column named "Status". The drop down has Closed, Denied, or Open as options. Further over, we have a column named "Date Closed", we would like the current date to be entered to close this incident if under Status we select Closed or Denied.

Also, on the same row we have a column showing the number of days the incident is open based on the entry date and then the closed date. As it stands now, this is a manual process going through the hunderds of row to enter a date in the Date closed column.

I think maybe an IF formula that can look at other columns would be a great addition. The row will remain in place and not be deleted or moved, it's just a form of saying "This row has been completed and no further action is required".

Our company is a Transportation business, when we track incidents, there is investigation process, insurance claims etc to take place.

Thanks, I hope this helps?"

Shaine Greenwood

Thanks for the input James! I've passed your feedback along to our Product team for further review.

 

Although we don't have functionality to automatically enter the date that a status changes to "Closed" or "Denied," you can place the letter "t" (lower case, no quotes) into a Date type column to manually populate the current date more quickly. (This shortcut can't be triggered by a formula either, I'm afraid.)

J. Craig Williams

James,

 

There is an IF formula - quite a lot of formulas in fact.

Here's a help article on them:

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/775363-using-formulas

 

However, and unfortunately, the IF won't help you in this case - probably.

There is no way to "lock" the data that is entered automatically by the formula.

You can captured the Modified date (a System column that is easily added), but if the row is updated again on a future date, it will change.

Something like this:

=IF(OR(Status23="Closed",Status23="Denied"), MIN(TODAY(), Modified23))

for row 23 

but again -- if the row is modified, then the Modified date will change.

 

Craig