Child Cell Formatting

MMahaffey

I would like for child cells to automatically appear for each new row, and then have an index/match formula be able to populate a column in the parent row from those child rows.

For example: New air freight request- 5 child rows with default values of the 5 carriers pop up (can't do a dropdown, I need to track the 5 carriers data over time), and then when I enter the quote numbers from each carrier and pick a carrier, it auto-populates the quote amount into the parent row.

I'm not sure if this is a functionality of Smartsheet. I would prefer to not have to manually create the rows and type them out each time, but I can if necessary.

Genevieve P.

Hi @MMahaffey

There currently isn't a way to automate creating child rows in Smartsheet, hierarchy is a manual action. (Please submit your feedback to the Product team through this form).

You can Copy Rows to keep hierarchy, either manually or through an automation. See: Copy and paste hierarchy 

However the formula in the Parent row is something you can automate, using the CHILDREN function. I would put this in a helper column and make it a Column Formula:

=IF(COUNT(ANCESTORS([Primary Column]@row)) > 0, "", SUM(CHILDREN([Quote Amount]@row)))

This will return a blank cell for any children, but if this is a parent row, SUM together the values of that parent's children in the Quote Amount column.

Let me know if this makes sense and will work for you!

Cheers,

Genevieve