Linking Sheets

Melitta King

Hi,

I have a set of 43 sheets, reports and dashboards. We recently linked a section of one project (10 rows) into another sheet so that the information gets updated in one place, yet it shows in the other project for which it is a dependency.

I now realize that while my reports pull correctly, my calculations are double dipping. i.e Countifs that count the status (rygb) count the original rows as well as the linked rows.

Does anyone know if there is a way to exclude linked rows in calculations?

I hope I have explained this well. Please feel free to ask questions in the quest to resolve this.

Thanks

Mark Cronk

Hi @Melitta King ,

I can only suggest a workaround. Add "Exclude" as a checkbox column to the sheets with data being counted. Check the box in rows that are linked and being double counted. Then add the Exclude column as a range and =0 as the criteria in your COUNTIFS formulas.

Curious to see if someone has a better solution.

Good luck,

Mark

Paul Newcome

Based on what I am reading, the suggestion of an "Exclude" column is going to be the best initial solution.

Are you able to provide more details as to your workflow, which metrics you are pulling, how your sheets work together, etc?

There may be a way to restructure that wouldn't require an "Exclude" column to help with not needing to manually check boxes (which can easily be forgotten or missed) as future projects are added and linked.

Mark Cronk

Hi @Melitta King ,

I can only suggest a workaround. Add "Exclude" as a checkbox column to the sheets with data being counted. Check the box in rows that are linked and being double counted. Then add the Exclude column as a range and =0 as the criteria in your COUNTIFS formulas.

Curious to see if someone has a better solution.

Good luck,

Mark

Melitta King

@Mark Cronk ,

We're looking to link a number of projects to cut down on duplicative reporting work.

Thank you for the workaround. I too, am interested to see if anyone else has a suggestion for how to address this.

Would you say this is the best way to ask this question? or is there a user group? I'm still learning my way around Community.

Thanks,

Melitta

Mark Cronk

Good morning @Melitta King ,

This is a perfect way to get answers to everything Smartsheet. There are a few people that have ALL the answers. Call them to the fire with @Mike Wilday , @Paul Newcome or @Andrée Starå .

Good luck.

Mark

Paul Newcome

Based on what I am reading, the suggestion of an "Exclude" column is going to be the best initial solution.

Are you able to provide more details as to your workflow, which metrics you are pulling, how your sheets work together, etc?

There may be a way to restructure that wouldn't require an "Exclude" column to help with not needing to manually check boxes (which can easily be forgotten or missed) as future projects are added and linked.

Melitta King

@Paul Newcome

I appreciate your weighing in. It appears that this column may have be built in at one point and then removed.

We have come up with a practice to limit linking for now.

I will test this out a on my own to see how it works, for my own knowledge at this time.

Thanks,

Melitta

Paul Newcome

Happy to help! 👍️