How to autopopulate today's date in a column

Mary Vogt

I would like to know if I should use a formula and where, in order to do the following:

When one dropdown menu choice is selected (in this case, 'incomplete'), the date column populates today's date automatically within that row. It doesn't seem that complicated, but yet a workflow doesn't appear to be the way to do it, nor do I think I can do it with conditional formatting? Thanks for any help.

Mary

Andrée Starå

@Mary Vogt

Answer to your other question.

Also I am wondering why forumlas can do things 10x more complex than that (I know because I have them in my sheets) they couldn't do this?

Unfortunately, no, because there isn't a timestamp/datestamp formula function or similar at the moment.

Andrée Starå

Hi @Mary Vogt

Please have a look at my post below with a method I developed.

More info: 

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/68589/lock-or-store-date-value-solution-without-using-zapier

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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Mary Vogt

This seems needlessly complex to me? I would think a formula could say if you select "completed" in one column, a date would auto-populate in the date column? I do not want to create a separate sheet to control it. Thank you for your input though!

Andrée Starå

@Mary Vogt

Happy to help!

Unfortunately, it's not possible to do it natively at the moment. The TODAY function will always show the current TODAY date.

There will soon be a time feature of some kind, and then my workaround probably isn't needed.

Until then, you can use my method, the Smartsheet API, or a 3rd party solution.

Make sense?

Mary Vogt

I'm having a tough time believing that can't be done given the 'timestamp' option when you enter data through a form? That date stays... it's pretty much the same thing I want to do, except without a form. Also I am wondering why forumlas can do things 10x more complex than that (I know because I have them in my sheets) they couldn't do this? I'd love to talk to a SmartSheet engineeer about it.

Andrée Starå

@Mary Vogt

Yes, you're correct. You can use the modified date system column, but only if nothing else changes on the row.

To add. It works with form a because we can use the created date column, and that never changes.

Andrée Starå

@Mary Vogt

Answer to your other question.

Also I am wondering why forumlas can do things 10x more complex than that (I know because I have them in my sheets) they couldn't do this?

Unfortunately, no, because there isn't a timestamp/datestamp formula function or similar at the moment.

Mary Vogt

Thanks for your responses, Andree! We will just manually add the dates for now.

Andrée Starå

@Mary Vogt

You're more than welcome!