Relative Default Date in Forms

Carmen Wong

I'm looking to do a 'Needed by' date in a form and I would like the default to be a relative Today + 2 weekdays. Anyone found a way to nicely do this?

ie. Today is 4/29 , the form will default to 5/1 as the suggested Need by date that can be overridden by the user - say they give us 1week instead - 5/6 that should be good.

Genius level 1: Relative +2 calendar days

Genius level 2: Relative +2 weekdays

Genius level 3: if entered date is less than Relative +2 weekdays throw a warning flag at the form user saying ahhh you better be in a bind here. (stern face)

Paul Newcome

The only way I have been able to find to implement a new daily URL is to use a report to pull the row(s) with the updating URL's. The report maintains the ability to click on the link and then you can share the report (published to control editing) or put the report on a dashboard and share the dashboard.

In the case of different forms for different users, I included an additional column for the report that labeled each form link.

Paul Newcome

To be able to get a relative default date in the form, you would need to edit the URL itself. This can be done using a formula, but I have never tested it with relative dates like this. I have a test set up and will be able to confirm tomorrow, but I am 99% positive that you would need to provide an updated URL daily. So if someone is using yesterday's form, it would be pre-populated with yesterday's date +2 working days instead of today's. I'll get back to you once I have confirmed.

Throwing the "Warning Flag" within the form itself would require moving to a 3rd party such as Google Forms (they may also have something built in for the dates as well). Google Forms also integrates very easily with Smartsheet.

Paul Newcome

So I did confirm. You would need to provide a new Form URL to your users daily to make sure the default date in the form was updated.

Another option would be to enter some general help text on the form that instructs users which date should be selected.

Carmen Wong

Implemented general help text but a new daily URL for a request form just isn't going to happen especially since it's a form integrated on Teams. Thanks for slamming some brain cells together on this.

This would be a definite enhancement to what seems to be a common use case for smart sheet - intake form for request queues. (ie. same day turn-arounds are a urgent case and is not the standard thing don't stuff something in here expecting it to be done.)

Paul Newcome

The only way I have been able to find to implement a new daily URL is to use a report to pull the row(s) with the updating URL's. The report maintains the ability to click on the link and then you can share the report (published to control editing) or put the report on a dashboard and share the dashboard.

In the case of different forms for different users, I included an additional column for the report that labeled each form link.

Paul Newcome

Or just share the sheet itself with only Viewer permissions.

The report came about from trying to put the link(s) on a dashboard. Metrics Widgets don't maintain the hyperlink functionality and Shortcut Widgets are static URL's.