Group Columns

Steve Mustafa

Hello,

I do not believe this function is currently available but I would like to add it as a feature request. It would be very helpful if you could group a set of coulmns in a sheet and easily hide/show . There are many instances of columns that are not needed often, but would like to have available to see when needed.

 

Thanks,

Steve

J. Craig Williams

I would like something like this too. Some sort of "View" or "Layout" feature. 

As a developer, it would be very helpful to switch back and forth between a small set of different views.

The view should allow a default filter (and sort if we get those) to be assigned to each view.

 

Craig

Shaine Greenwood

Hi All—

 

I've got your votes down for this on our enhancement request list for further consideration by our Product team.

 

We do have a default filter and view that you can apply to other users as you share them a sheet, but they can easily take the filter off—and there isn't functionality for the default view to only show certain columns and keep a sort applied. (I've got your votes down for these features as well.)

lchajkowski

Hi Smartsheet folks,

I see that users have been asking for the group columns feature since 2015.  Now that we are getting to the end of 2017, could you let us know how much longer.  Has this enhancement request moved into the development stage yet?

Laura

Anna Ryzhenkova

Hello!

I have the same question, when this feature will be implemented?

Because of the lack of column group feature, sheets are often looks very unfriendly to users. For example, we have to keep unhided all columns which will be necessary during project, but some of them we might need only a few times or only for 1-2 persons, when there are up to 30 persons working on project (and they don't have admin permissions to unhide columns) ...

So this makes our sheet look very huge and vital information may not be visible.

thanks,

Anna.

J. Craig Williams

For this reason (and others), I use Reports to narrow the focus of what the user is viewing when performing tasks. 

Craig

Kurt@TheMac

Pardon the redundant question but is this still on anyone's radar at Smartsheet? Grouping columns seems like a feature that would have broad appeal.

J. Craig Williams

It is on my radar but I'm not a Smartsheet employee.

Craig

Rich Gary

Craig,

do you have an example?

Can reports sum columns and create a QRTLY view or does the QRTLY totals have to be in the worksheet.... i'm missing my excel way too much!  and here almost 3 yrs. in development for this feature is a bit concerning.

J. Craig Williams

Reports do not yet allow for their own calculations.

For narrowing of focus, a common example is a work flow where tasks come in via a Form - let's say 10 columns.

A user needs to perform some task on the new row. Additional columns are added to the sheet - let's say 3, and a Report that shows some of 10 columns (let's use 6) and the 3 columns they need to do their job.

Another user will pick up the baton from the first user. Additional columns are added to the sheet - this time 5. A Report is built to show some of the 10 columns (this time 6 but not the same 6) and 2 of the 3 columns from the first user and their five columns. Their Reports shows 11 of the sheet's 19 columns.

The workflow progresses - but no one really needs to see every column at once so each Report is a subset of the columns and only the rows that are important for whatever task is being performed.

Does that help explain it?

Craig

Pam Bates

+1 on column management

Enhancement suggestion is how Excel handles Grouping in Data.  Setting the contiguous columns (or rows) you want to hide creates a "- & +" to hide & unhide those columns.  Multiple groups are allowed.  

A macro to create a custom saved view would be more flexible though.   

In the mean time I'm going to look at reports per Craig's suggestion