Automated way to move "Comments" (Conversations in Smartsheet) from column to Conversations

Jennifer McNeely

Hi, I have a team maintaining an Action Tracker. All are relatively new to Smartsheet from Excel and most are at a higher pay grade than me. As such, they asked for a "Comments" column in the Action Item grid to track DAILY actions and updates. As you can imagine the row sizes are quickly becoming unmanageable.

Is there any way to write a formula or create an automatic workflow to transfer those items to the real Conversations area where they belong? If not, how do I request this be considered for future development? It is a real headache for those of us administering Smartsheet in an Excel-addicted world.

austinbaker96

Here is a work around using the smartsheet API to move a column contents to the conversation for the respective row.

install dependency.

pip install smartsheet-python-sdk

import smartsheet


# Initialize the Smartsheet client

#Can get an API Token by going to your account in smartsheet and generating an API Key

smartsheet_client = smartsheet.Smartsheet('Your API KEY HERE')


# Specify the sheet ID

#Can get Sheet ID by going to file>sheet properties

sheet_id = SHEET ID HERE


# Fetch the entire sheet

try:

    sheet = smartsheet_client.Sheets.get_sheet(sheet_id)

except Exception as e:

    print(f"Error fetching the sheet: {e}")

    exit(1)


# Find the column ID for 'STATUS (Legacy)'

status_column_id = None

for column in sheet.columns:

    if column.title == 'STATUS (Legacy)':

        status_column_id = column.id

        break


if status_column_id is None:

#Replace with your column name

    print("Column 'Column Name HERE' not found.")

else:

    # Iterate through all rows in the sheet

    for row in sheet.rows:

        # Retrieve the comment text from the 'STATUS (Legacy)' column

        comment_text = None

        for cell in row.cells:

            if cell.column_id == status_column_id:

                comment_text = cell.value

                break


        if comment_text is not None:

            # Convert comment to string to ensure compatibility

            comment_text = str(comment_text)


            # Create a Comment object with the full text

            comment = smartsheet.models.Comment({

                'text': comment_text

            })


            # Create a discussion object with the Comment

            discussion = smartsheet.models.Discussion({

                'comment': comment

            })


            # Try to add the discussion to the row

            try:

                new_discussion = smartsheet_client.Discussions.create_discussion_on_row(sheet_id, row.id, discussion)

                print(f"Added discussion to row {row.id}: {comment_text}")

            except Exception as e:

                print(f"Error adding discussion to row {row.id}: {e}")


print("Finished adding comments to all rows.")

Hope this helps