Suggestion for dynamic lists

Chris Winfield

A feature that would be fantastic for large scale project work would be dynamic lists that could be set up on a sheet and then referred to by drop-down lists in other forms/sheets.

 

E.g. As more projects or names are added to a sheet these then automatically populate drop-down lists for an "Add new risk" form.

 

Richard Rymill SBP

We are testing a solution for this very requirement right now and once satisfied it meets our criteria, happy to Share, probably @ 10 days time if that helps? 

One note of caution though, you would need access to Google Drive and most NHS are  Microsoft and SharePoint houses? 

Regards Richardr

Chris Winfield

Yep - we would struggle to get GoogleDrive implemented here. I'll be interested to see your solution though!

Richard Rymill SBP

Noted Chris and will alert once we are happy the solution is ready for consumption. 

Regards Richardr

PPS Solutions

Yes Chris, something like that would be welcome.  It is a basis SharePoint feature and customers have been asking for it recently at a recent tradeshow

Jim Hook

I asked Smartsheet support about this type of feature a couple of weeks ago and that will be very helpful to me. I do have access to Google Drive but I'm not sure how that will connect to a given Smartsheet to drive the list data into a given dropdown list.

JamesR

This is a feature that makes complete sense.  Sometimes people get excited about the big wizzy things that they want and are prommised, but often its the little things that mean the most to most people.

Dynamic Lists

Discription Property on Column Names that show as screen tips

Comments in cells

 

But to name a few.

 

James

Chris Winfield

Yep - like the "description property" as screen tips idea - that would be very helpful.

 

Chris

JamesR

Chris

Yes it would, especially as the property field exists and can be used in the web form. It would not be too difficult to implement it n the sheet.

David Smith

This is also a feature that we would implement the first day it was available. 

 

I have ~50 staff who occasionally use up  to 5 to 7 smartsheets via webform.  Trying to keep each webform updated with the current names of the staff is a challenge.  Essentially I have to keep a master list in a separate application, and then update/refresh on a regular schedule.

 

Having the name as a drop-down list, rather than a blank form, means I can export into Excel and run pivot tables to review the # of forms by staff, or any type of similar analysis that is made easier by standard data input.

 

Plus, there's something warm and fuzzy about selecting your name from a list rather than typing it in. 

Chris Winfield

... and who doesn't love that warm fuzzy feeling when something geeky works well!

Tim Meeks

Richard,  Any update on the solution for this?  

 

We are also wanting to have a central table that contains values that when updated populate the same column on 4 other sheets.  The only way I've seen so far to do it automatically is to use APIs to update the 4 other columns once the Source column is updated.

 

Any other ideas?

 

thanks,

Tim

Travis

Richard, was your company able to develop a solution for this? 

Mike Schinkel

YES!  This feature is critical.  I actually assumed you had it because of the property field and the dropdown lists.  It would be so easy (from a UI perspective) to add an option to the Dropdown List definition to select from a sheet rather than select from a manually entered list of items.

 

AND it should be hyperlinked so we can click it and go to that sheet (along with a back button to return us to the original sheet.)

 

See related request.

syntropy

I got here hoping i would find a ready solution. This is a feature that can make less technical users able to make much less mess in the data.

DJ Case

Dynamic list functionality is absolutely critical for our needs.