Conditional formatting or restriction in format for forms

LJK

Context: Employees have to enter data and use a unique identifier which has a naming convention.

I would like to either use conditional formating or restriction of a certain format for Smartsheet Form in order to minimize the data cleaning effort.

Are there any workarounds?

Mike TV

@LJK

Forms can't display cells with formulas I don't think. Just dropdown fields with choices and text entry fields.

Dynamic View can allow you to reference something after someone enters stuff. Such as selecting a product and after they save it can load up the quantity available etc that is a formula.

You've got a pretty lengthy unique identifier format there. I'm not sure how you would automate it being generated unless you are gathering the variables that generate the unique identifier on the sheet or another sheet somewhere. Either you'll have to trust your people to enter the proper unique identifier and then manually correct mistakes or you'll have to collect the data from them so you can build it with a formula which means more dropdowns for them to fill out.

Mike TV

@LJK

You could use a combination of a system generated number column and a formula with nested IF statements to automatically patch together your unique identifier. Do you have examples of how your naming convention works and would there be any information you can gather from the data the team members enter that would help determine which naming convention format to use?

LJK

@Mike TV

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. Yes I thought about the same. However, I am worried that people would have to go through several dropdowns which can make the whole process lengthy. The workers are in a production enviroment and have an Ipad as device.

LJK

Is there a search function in forms?

Mike TV

@LJK

Forms can't display cells with formulas I don't think. Just dropdown fields with choices and text entry fields.

Dynamic View can allow you to reference something after someone enters stuff. Such as selecting a product and after they save it can load up the quantity available etc that is a formula.

You've got a pretty lengthy unique identifier format there. I'm not sure how you would automate it being generated unless you are gathering the variables that generate the unique identifier on the sheet or another sheet somewhere. Either you'll have to trust your people to enter the proper unique identifier and then manually correct mistakes or you'll have to collect the data from them so you can build it with a formula which means more dropdowns for them to fill out.

Andrée Starå

Hi @LJK

I hope you're well and safe!

To add to Mike's excellent advice/answer.

Can you give an example of what you'd need to clean up?

At a glance, it seems pretty straightforward to maybe use four dropdown columns in the form and maybe combine it with the Form Logic feature.

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic weekend!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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