How do I stop Smartsheet from auto-filling dates?

Beth Higgins

I have a Smartsheet where there is a Date Received column and a Due Date column. Neither one of these columns contains a formula.

When I enter a new row, as soon as I enter the Date Received, Smartsheet is auto-filling the Due Date column to match the Date Received. 99% of the time this is incorrect.

The intention is that both of these columns should be manually entered. Is there a way I can make Smartsheet stop auto-filling the Due Date column?

If it's relevant, there are other columns that have formulas where the output of the formula is based on the dates entered into these two fields. These formulas analyze the number of business days between our received date and our due date.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Paul Newcome

There doesn't need to be a formula for the dependencies to auto-fill the date. The only way to get it to NOT fill in the date automatically would be to turn off the dependencies.

Paul Newcome

Do you have dependencies enabled on the sheet?

Beth Higgins

Hi,

Yes, the sheet does have dependencies enabled to account for holidays.

Paul Newcome

When dependencies are enabled, it will automatically take into account the duration (and any predecessors) and auto-fill whatever date is not entered.

Beth Higgins

There is no formula there, though, so I don't understand why it would be doing that. More importantly, is there a way to stop it from auto-filling? It's putting in the wrong information, and because the cell is not being left blank, sometimes other users don't know that it's incorrect.

Thank you again!

Paul Newcome

There doesn't need to be a formula for the dependencies to auto-fill the date. The only way to get it to NOT fill in the date automatically would be to turn off the dependencies.

Benjamin711

I was having a similar problem where my start dates were auto-populating and I wasn't able to change them manually. The problem is that if your trying to change the start date of a "sub-task", but the item it's nested under has a "predecessor" assigned to it, the subtask dates will all defer to the predecessor's date. Removing the predecessor from the main heading task solved my problem.