Summary Fields Behaviour

Mark Ryan

Hi,

I know there is default behaviour in Smartsheet regarding start, finish and duration fields that when a row becomes a parent it automatically shows the sum of the fields of the children below it. Is it possible to define if other columns should have the same behaviour? The reason for asking is that I have another column that holds information on the actual effort (as the duration is different to the effort), and I would like this to automatically show the sum of any children rows. I know it's possible to write a formula, but that would need another row being created, and just seems a little clunky when this already works for some fields.

Thanks,

Mark

Paul Newcome

@Mark Ryan I understand what you are looking for now. The only way to accomplish this would be through formula. You would not necessarily need to add in another column to determine parent vs child rows. You could simply build that logic into the formula itself. Something along the lines of...

=IF(COUNT(CHILDREN()) > 0, SUM(CHILDREN()), something different or nothing at all)

Basically you just take your original formula and insert it into an IF statement that determines whether or not the row is a parent row or not.

I do suggest that you Submit a Product Enhancement Request as being able to include additional columns in the dependency settings to automatically act as a "rollup" would be pretty handy to have.

Mark Ryan

Thanks @Paul Newcome, I'll definitely add an enhancement request as the fact that some columns already have the dependency settings enabled, means it can't be that difficult to extend it out to other selectable columns.

Thanks again for your advice.

Mark

Paul Newcome

It may not necessarily require another row. In the parent row in the same column, you should be able to use something along the lines of

=SUM(CHILDREN())

Mark Ryan

Hi @Paul Newcome ,

Many thanks for the response. I already use the =sum(children()) extensively in my sheet. My use case here is that I am putting together a template that needs to be as automated as possible for the Project Managers to update. There are more than likely going to be sub tasks within a phase, so the PM will create the hierarchy themselves by indenting the rows to make them become children of the parent task. When they do so, I want the planned hours (for instance) to then have the behaviour to show the total hours of the sub tasks. I don't really want the PMs to have to go in and manually add the formula to any parent rows. As this already happens automatically with the date and duration columns, with no need for a formulaic workaround, I was hoping you could define other columns to have this behaviour.

I can create an additional column that can do that, and see if the the row is a parent, and if it is then use the formula you mentioned, but that just seems a bit clunky.

Thanks,

Mark

Paul Newcome

@Mark Ryan I understand what you are looking for now. The only way to accomplish this would be through formula. You would not necessarily need to add in another column to determine parent vs child rows. You could simply build that logic into the formula itself. Something along the lines of...

=IF(COUNT(CHILDREN()) > 0, SUM(CHILDREN()), something different or nothing at all)

Basically you just take your original formula and insert it into an IF statement that determines whether or not the row is a parent row or not.

I do suggest that you Submit a Product Enhancement Request as being able to include additional columns in the dependency settings to automatically act as a "rollup" would be pretty handy to have.

Mark Ryan

Thanks @Paul Newcome, I'll definitely add an enhancement request as the fact that some columns already have the dependency settings enabled, means it can't be that difficult to extend it out to other selectable columns.

Thanks again for your advice.

Mark