Change Formatting in Reports

Samuel Mueller

It would be very convenient to be able to format a report different than the sheet. One purpose of a report is to bring multiple sheets of data together, but often those different sheets have different formatting which can make your report look awful. If you could format your report at the report level, it would solve all sorts of formatting issues.

ro.fei

Right now we can format sheets & choose to bring over the formatting from there, but that's not enough. Sometimes I want my reports formatted slightly differently than what I have in the sheet(s) it's pulling from. Furthermore, there's currently no way at all to format summary rows in reports, which is infuriating when everything else in the column has no decimals/1 decimal/etc. but the summary row has 5.

Jared G

Completely agree! Often the users who view reports need/want a different format from the folks managing the information in the sheets day to day. This would be a great feature.

Harvey E

Even on a more simple level where you'd like different views of the same sheet data, eg a Project Plan which might have conditional formats on it highlighting tasks running late, key milestones etc, but you want a cleaner representation of the same data, eg a high level plan (report)

scottreiter

I have a report that utilizes the Summary functionality (to give me averages for each column). Due to the lack of formatting, it looks pretty bad. There is no way to control how many decimal places ..or center align the column to match the center aligned content in the columns. This makes the summary data formatting inconsistent and difficult to read. Please add formatting!

Michelle Choate 2

Absolutely! Customizable reporting formats are indeed a valuable feature that can enhance the usability and effectiveness of any management tool. Providing the flexibility to tailor reports to the specific needs and preferences of different user roles or stakeholders can greatly improve communication, decision-making, and overall productivity within an organization.

Having the ability to easily switch between various report views or formats can empower users to extract the most relevant insights for their respective roles, whether they are involved in day-to-day operations, management, or executive-level decision-making. It promotes a more efficient and tailored approach to accessing and presenting information, ensuring that each user can focus on the key metrics and data points most relevant to their responsibilities.

Integrating this feature into the solution would align well with addressing diverse user requirements and fostering a user-friendly experience, ultimately contributing to enhanced data utilization and better-informed decision-making across the organization.

Monicacraven

Couldn't agree more. Combining sheets in a report can make a very ugly an inconsistent user experience especially if you put this in a dashboard.

broctawn

This would be a very useful feature where I work. Please bring this idea to life!

crodts

It would be nice to be able to clear sheet formatting when it is pulled into a report.

It would be even nicer to then be able to create new formatting within the report.

Jenann

This would solve an issue I am having now! I have a lot of data in the Sheet Summary based on formula and want the negative numbers to be RED. Currently no way to do it BUT if I could update on the report it would solve this!!! Love this idea great for many other issues as well. On some sheets I want the data Gray to alert PMs NOT to change. But on reports. Now all gray!

NickBlocker

Please make this enhancement happen. It is so super frustrating that you don’t have full control like you do in Excel. If you are going to compete with the likes of Microsoft who already has a leg up as their software Office 365 is a complete suite which does, in my opinion better the same things Smartsheet can do and a whole lot more, you need to focus on these small enhancements that make the life of the end user so much easier.

Workarounds are ok for a short period of time however; that takes more valuable time from my day and I don’t need to be adding processes that take me longer to complete tasks. This is counter intuitive to being efficient and that is the entire purpose of Smartsheet.

swilly

NEED CONIDITONAL FORMATTING ON REPORTS!!!!

Having to open each source sheet to have the conditional formatting reload is not efficient.

TheSloppyJoe

Is there a way to strip the formatting so that it doesn't carry over from the source sheet(s)?

Samuel Mueller

@TheSloppyJoe only if the report is on a dashboard.

TheSloppyJoe

Thanks for the quick response @Samuel Mueller. Guess I'll have to submit another enhancement request. As much as I love and advocate for Smartsheet, it amazes me how many fundamental/basic features are overlooked.

Tpugh

Without this enhancement, dashboards containing Metric data are unsuitable for professional presentations.