Dynamic Hierarchy

Joshua Swenson

I am in the process of developing some work flow sheets for my team and I would like them to do the bulk of their submissions via web forms. Is there a way to create dynamic hierarchy whereby when a form is submitted, x criteria places that new submission under the correct "Parent"? 

 

Let's say that I have 3 Categories within my sheet;

Test Cs

Test Ds

Test Es

I want to make these three categories the parent categories and anything related to them would then become children that get indented. However I would like my team to add rows by completing a form online. Is there a way to have those rows dynamically adopt the "child" status?

Joshua Swenson

Clarification with "tentative formula example"

Let's say I have 4 Columns; Main, 1, 2, 3

 

Test Cs

Test Ds

Test Es

Are all "Parents" in "Main"

 

Column 3 in my form allows me to choose Parent. What I would like is a formula that dynamically looks at column 3 of any new row and defines it as child of corresponding parent. In other words;

 

=if(3 = "Test Es", PARENT(Test Es))

 

So the question is... is there an easy way to do that? like with vlookup? Is this even an opion?

 

Craig, I'm looking at you!

Brett Evans

Josh,

Webforms enter info onto the top line of a sheet.  There isn't an IF or other UI formula that would move the row into a heirarchy.

 

One possible work around would be to create reports that parse the entries into the correct groups.    This admittedly would not have the same functionality as a Parent-Child relationship, but would group your entries.

 

-Brett

Joshua Swenson

I'm actually surprised no one has asked this question before. 

 

I would think this would be a common need / desire as it would instantly make smartsheets a dynamic organizational tool.

Brett Evans

Joshua,

 

If you have a programmer in your midst, you can build this type of functionality out in the API.  The API covers most scenarios that you could think of.

 

-Brett

J. Craig Williams

Joshua,

 

One small clarification on what Brett said: entries from WebForms can be either top or bottom of the sheet.

And this feature has been requested previously. Quite a few times by my count.

 

Craig