Parent / Child Copy Automation

ginamt3

We are starting to do job costing in Smartsheets. The blue line represents the Parent row where all our KPI s are. They are pulling from the tables below or off of other SS. The tables below populate the blue line and are child rows so that they can collapse. I want to use this one as a template and have the parent/child to copy over to a new sheet to avoid having someone manually copy and paste.

Paul Newcome

If you scroll down a little to the Report Builder section on this link then you should find what you need.

https://help.smartsheet.com/topics/Reports

Basically you would create a new row report and select the workspace instead of an individual sheet to reference.

I would skip over the columns for now and go straight to the filters where one filter is set up for where the Sheet Name contains "Specific Text". Other filters would be put in place to only pull in the rows you want. You may need to adjust the template with a checkbox column and check the box(es) on the row(s) you want to pull in from each sheet. Then you could just create a filter to only pull in rows where that box is checked.

Now that you have less sheets being pulled in, it should be easier to go through which columns are and are not displayed.

Paul Newcome

Have you tried making this a template or saving the sheet as new?

ginamt3

i could. but I would like to have all the blue lines in a sheet so I can do reporting on the blue line

Paul Newcome

I'm not sure I follow. Are you wanting to create a new sheet based off of a template, or are you wanting to compile all of the blue lines from multiple sheets into one?

ginamt3

yes. I want to compile the blue line while being able to uncollapse the tables with data underneath.

Paul Newcome

So you want both the blue line as well as the child section repeated multiple times within the same sheet?

In that case, the only option is copy/paste.

ginamt3

Okay. If I used a template, how hard is it to create reports based on that blue line. Do I have to continually add new sheets to the report?

Paul Newcome

That will depend on how you have everything organized. If all of the sheets created from the template are going to be in the same workspace, you can have each one contain some kind of standard naming convention such as "Project A Blue Line", "Project B Blue Line", "Project C Blue Line", etc.. Then you would create a report that looks at the entire workspace and include a filter on the sheet name containing "Blue Line".

If they are in different workspaces and/or you are unable to get the standard naming convention to filter on, then yes. You would need to individually add them as they are created.

ginamt3

they can all be in the same workspace. That sounds like the perfect scenario. Is there documentation on how to set up a report to add new sheets in?

Paul Newcome

If you scroll down a little to the Report Builder section on this link then you should find what you need.

https://help.smartsheet.com/topics/Reports

Basically you would create a new row report and select the workspace instead of an individual sheet to reference.

I would skip over the columns for now and go straight to the filters where one filter is set up for where the Sheet Name contains "Specific Text". Other filters would be put in place to only pull in the rows you want. You may need to adjust the template with a checkbox column and check the box(es) on the row(s) you want to pull in from each sheet. Then you could just create a filter to only pull in rows where that box is checked.

Now that you have less sheets being pulled in, it should be easier to go through which columns are and are not displayed.