Column formula with flagged parent/child rows

ejrbean

Hi all,

I wrote a formula that would cause the parent row to be flagged if any of the child rows were flagged:

=IF(COUNT(CHILDREN([Protocol ID]@row)) > 0, IF(COUNTIF(CHILDREN(), 1) > 0, 1))))

I want to be able to convert this to a column formula, so I created a "level" column so that parent rows would be labeled as level 1 & child rows would be blank, then I wrote this formula:

=IF(Level@row = 1, (IF(COUNT(CHILDREN([Protocol ID]@row)) > 0, IF(COUNTIF(CHILDREN(), 1) > 0, 1))))

This worked just fine when the formula was just applied to the parent & child rows, but when I converted it to a column formula, I couldn't flag the child rows anymore and the formula therefore didn't work.

Is there a different way to write or apply the formula so that this will apply when applied as a column formula?

Thank you!

Andrée Starå

Hi @ejrbean

I hope you're well and safe!

When you use a column formula, you can't change anything in the column manually, so you'd need to use so-called helper columns to make it work.

Make sense?

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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ejrbean

That makes sense. What kind of helper column would you recommend? I have a level column (that marks parent rows as level 1 so that I can apply conditional formatting to parent rows) and a "breadcrumbs" helper column that indicates the parent row and sheet on the children rows (for reference in reports and if I copy or move rows). Would there be a formula that could incorporate one of these that I could use, or would I need a different helper column?