Can you embed data on the back end of a Form to autofill selections?

aliseFrankhouser

I am building a form that will capture clock hours. Those employees clocking the hours are tied to name key, which is tied to a supervisor who is then tied to a budget center which is tied to a budget code.

Is there a way to embed data on the back end to help auto-fill this information?

For example: I select Jane Doe as my supervisor from a dropdown. Because Jane Doe is selected, my budget center selection is auto populated on the form.

We are moving to a smartsheet form from paper time cards to help avoid human error, and fear that manually entering in this data will still allow for human error and additional maintenance.

Thanks for your thoughts and help!

Mike TV

@aliseFrankhouser

Yes. You can do that with INDEX MATCH. You'll need to get familiar with how to create those. They're very helpful and used a lot.

https://help.smartsheet.com/function/index

I find this an easier way to understand how to build it than their explanation:

=INDEX({Range your output results are pulled from}, MATCH([Cell to match data against such as Jane Doe supervisor]@row, {Range with list of supervisors}, 0))

Andrée Starå

Hi @aliseFrankhouser

I hope you're well and safe!

To add to Mike's excellent advice/answer.

Another option could be to use the URL-Query feature to pre-populate the form with individual information.

You could have individual links/forms for each employee.

-

When you click on the URL created with the help of the URL-query, it will open the Form layout with fields already filled in.

Using the URL-Query feature, you could use an Automated Alert Workflow and include a link to the pre-filled form.

More info:

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2478871-url-query-string-form-default-values

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe, and have a fantastic weekend!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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