Grouping Columns

Nick Sor

Hello,

I am trying to track data by year for different buildings. I have three pieces of information that need to be tracked per year. Is it possible to group columns together to signify that they belong to a certain year?

Thank you

Andrée Starå

Hi @Nick Sor

I hope you're well and safe!

Unfortunately, it's not possible now to group columns, but it's an excellent idea!

Please submit this as a Product Feedback or Idea (If it hasn't been added already) when you have a moment.

Here's a possible workaround or workarounds

• Add a so-called helper column between the "Groups" and color it in color, so it separates the Groups.

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe, and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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Andrée Starå

@Nick Sor

I usually name them something like this.

Budget (2022), Budget (2023), and so on.

Andrée Starå

Hi @Nick Sor

I hope you're well and safe!

Unfortunately, it's not possible now to group columns, but it's an excellent idea!

Please submit this as a Product Feedback or Idea (If it hasn't been added already) when you have a moment.

Here's a possible workaround or workarounds

• Add a so-called helper column between the "Groups" and color it in color, so it separates the Groups.

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe, and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

✅Did my post(s) help or answer your question or solve your problem? Please support the Community by marking it Insightful/Vote Up, Awesome, or/and as the accepted answer. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!

Nick Sor

That could work. I am trying to think of a clean solution without just having the names of the columns be the same with a different year such as 2018 Column1, 2019 Column1. Is there anything that comes to mind that would be useful for this? Thank you

Andrée Starå

@Nick Sor

I usually name them something like this.

Budget (2022), Budget (2023), and so on.

Unknown

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Cleversheet

As you've observed by now, @Nick Sor, you can't group columns like you can rows—yet, anyway. As @alecching noted, that capability has been on the wishlist for a long time. In the meantime, I don't see any approach other than using the year reference within each of the applicable column names. If you're wanting to be able to visually distinguish them you might have the leftmost column for each year be in a background color. That way as you swipe left/right each block of columns for a year would be "grouped" visually.

Annaleah Morrow

We would love to have grouping in Smartsheet. It is such an easy process in Excel, and it would be easier to see this data together in Smartsheet rather than having to separate the sheets. We will enter a Product Feedback request, as we really support this. @kaelynbister