Importing from excel to smartsheet project plan template

Zoe Beattie

Hi there,

I have created a project plan template that I would like to use. I have the project plan and data set in an excel that I would look to import.

When I import the data - my duration, predecessor columns are not working as expected. It also does not provide me the functionality to amend columns that were brought in from the spreadsheet. They seem to be locked down and I can not change the column types.

Can you advise on this? Is it not possible to bring these columns on from excel to reflect in the project plan columns?

Any help or best practices for importing from excel would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Zoe

Prevain D

Hi @Zoe Beattie

In review of your query, I can confirm this is by design. When importing from Excel, some imported items are retained. Note that you may need to make manual adjustments to the sheet after it's imported to get it to look and function the way that you want.

Common items that may require adjustments include:

• Capabilities that are not available in Smartsheet. These won't be included in the imported sheet—for example, merged cells, multiple sheets in a workbook, or cell borders.
• Drop-down lists for data validation will need to be re-created in Smartsheet. (For more information about data validation capabilities in Smartsheet, see Control Data Entry and Allow Only Specific Values in a Column.)
• If you import an Excel sheet or Google Spreadsheet that uses a formula that isn't supported in Smartsheet, an #UNPARSEABLE error will appear in place of the formula. For more information about formula errors, see the Formula Error Messages article.
• Images from an external file won't import

Further information on this topic can be found in our help centre article: https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/504553-import-files-to-create-new-sheets

Please also note as you are working with project settings, If a row has a given Duration and Predecessor value, the Start and End dates will be calculated automatically. If using the default Finish-to-Start (FS) or Start-to-Start (SS) predecessor relationship, the Start date will be set automatically based on the dates of the Predecessor task. The corresponding End date will be calculated automatically by adding the given Duration to the Start date. If using the Start-to-Finish (SF) or Finish-to-Finish (FF) predecessor relationships, the End date of the task will be calculated automatically based on the dates of the Predecessor task, and the Start date will be equivalent to the End date minus the given Duration.

For more information please see our help centre article:

• https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/765737-project-sheet-columns-start-date-end-date-duration-complete-and-predecessors
• https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/765755-modifying-project-settings 

 Thank you for using Smartsheet!

Prevain