What are the pros and cons of using the smartsheet URL as a unique ID for indexing?

AFAICT Smartsheet does not come with any kind of auto-numbering system to give sheets a unique ID other than the URL.

The PMO template set here suggests using an intake sheet which will give users as ID (via autonumber I presume, I haven't looked at it yet).

What are the pros and cons of using the URL as the unique ID? It's generated on every sheet and can easily be pasted into a Sheet Summary field and an indexing sheet, to allow lookups into the project sheet from that indexing sheet.

A second query: I'd hoped that the URL would also allow the indexing sheet to formulaically retrieve data from the sheet at that URL, but this doesn't seem possible, i.e. by formulaically referencing the URL and pulling back columns for index formulas.

thanks!

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Accepted answers

Genevieve P.

Hi @CycleBagEd

Every Smartsheet item has a unique ID associated with it; you can find this under File > Properties. This ID is unique per-sheet and is what the Smartsheet API uses to identify each sheet.

Screen Shot 2022-01-14 at 2.53.20 PM.png

This ID would be much more succinct than the URL, and would prevent details like a URL being pasted with additional strings, such as the view (?view=grid) on the end.

You are correct that there currently isn't a way to reference a cell that houses a Sheet URL to identify the sheet/columns to pull back in a formula. Currently the only way to identify a different sheet in a formula is to set up a Cross Sheet Reference, see: Formulas: Reference Data from Other Sheets.

Cheers,

Genevieve

All comments

Genevieve P.

Hi @CycleBagEd

Every Smartsheet item has a unique ID associated with it; you can find this under File > Properties. This ID is unique per-sheet and is what the Smartsheet API uses to identify each sheet.

This ID would be much more succinct than the URL, and would prevent details like a URL being pasted with additional strings, such as the view (?view=grid) on the end.

Cheers,

Genevieve

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