Automated Workflow to populate form

I'm currently working on a solution to have a data condition on Sheet1 (ColumnA is set to "Ready for Submission") trigger an automated workflow to populate a form on Sheet2 with data from the triggering row in Sheet1. The only (potential) solve I've been able to think of for this is to have a workflow in Sheet1 to "Alert someone" when ColumnA is set to a given value, and within that alert build a URL to the form on Sheet2 with variables within the link meant to populate the form fields.

So effectively the flow would be:

1) User populates all necessary data in a given row.

2) Once complete, user update ColumnA to "Ready for Submission"

3) Workflow triggers an alert email which is sent to pre-defined person, and within that email is a URL to Sheet2's form with variables in the URL (ex: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/908324098230498234?var1=colB_val&var2=colC_val&var3=colD_val) that the user can click to take them to the auto-filled form.

4) They review data, click "submit" on the form.

My question is, is there a way to do this without the email, where upon changing the value in ColumnA a new window pops up for the URL mentioned in step 3, with the form pre-populated? I can't find a way to do this, so I'm guessing the answer is "no", but wanted to ask all the same. :) Thanks in advance for any insight you can provide!

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Andrée Starå

Hi @kljohansson

I hope you're well and safe!

Would it work if you copied the row over to the other sheet, triggering an Update Request instead?

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic weekend!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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kljohansson

@Andrée Starå - thanks for the reply! The problem we have with that approach is that SheetA has around 70 columns and SheetB has only 10, and copying the row from A to B would also add the other 60 columns to SheetB (also the column names between the sheets don't map 1:1...we could rename them to accommodate but the values in SheetA vs SheetB have slightly different purposes, so naming them the same could cause slight confusion).

I believe we could hide the additional 60 columns to get around the issue of it looking cluttered, but we also (somewhat) regularly add new data points to SheetA. Keeping SheetB "clean" by having to remember to hide columns in SheetB as they are added to SheetA isn't ideal either, as SheetB has visibility from management and we want that document as presentable as possible without manual intervention.

Andrée Starå

@kljohansson

Happy to help!

Have you looked into using a report instead?

Also, you could use cross-sheet formulas combined with either a VLOOKUP or INDEX/MATCH structure to connect the sheets, and when you update the source sheet, it will reflect on the destination sheet.

Another option would be to use so-called helper sheets. In short, copy the row to a helper sheet and then use my method described previously to get the values you need to another helper sheet and then copy/move the row from that sheet to the main destination sheet.

Would any of those options work/help?

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