Checkbox - Automatically Check Child Rows By Checking Parent

Elliot Raff · 08/06/18

My Task column has many rows that are parents to multiple child rows. Another column is a checkbox. It would be a huge time saver and help ensure accuracy if I could check-off all child rows under a parent by checking off just the parent. I tried holding CTRL while checking the parent - ddidn't work -- and highlighting all the child rows -- also did not work. Seems like there should be a way to check-off multiple rows with a single click. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Andrée Starå · 08/06/18

Hi Elliot,

If you select the checkboxes that you want to check while holding shift and then check one of the boxes, it will work.

Another option could be to set the child rows to get checked if the parent gets checked, but it will break if you manually check the children.

Would that work for you?

I hope this helps you!

Best,

Andrée Starå - Workflow Consultant @ Get Done

Lee Joramo · 08/06/18

Interesting question. I don't think I could do this in most any spreadsheets without resorting to a script/macro. A cell can either have a raw data value, or a formula. Scripts can overwrite data and achieve your request. Maybe this could be done via the smartsheet API, but I have only begun to explore the developer tools.

While I can't help with the automatic checking off of children, I can suggest a way to ensure accuracy. You can use conditional formatting to highlight children with checked off parents and alert use that they need to be checked.

Here is a sheet to show this: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/publish?EQBCT=3e5073463ca746c899fc54746604396c

In this we create a [ParentCompleted] column to get the value of the parents [Completed] status. We could hide this column. Next we create a conditional format so that if the child [Completed] is NOT checked and parents IS checked, we set the background color.

Elliot Raff · 08/06/18

I didn't think of highlighting the cells in the row -- I was highlighting all the rows. Many thanks.

Elliot Raff · 08/06/18

Thank you - I will try this.

Andrée Starå · 08/06/18

Happy to help!

Sarah McKew · 07/23/21

@Andrée Starå

Edit: never mind I worked it out finally haha :D

=COUNTIFS(PARENT(), 1) = COUNT(PARENT())

You mentioned above "Another option could be to set the child rows to get checked if the parent gets checked, but it will break if you manually check the children."

Could you please tell me what that formula would be? I keep coming across threads about Countifs and different suggestions but haven't found one that works.

Thank you :)

Checkbox - Automatically Check Child Rows By Checking Parent

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