Multiselect Dropdown with Form integration

Hi SS,

The community has been asking for a multiselect dropdown option since 2015. It seems there was some confusion in the other community posts, so I wanted to readdress the issue.

Feature request: Dropdown menu with multiple selection option with integration into the forms.

The work around of multiple columns is sloppy and doesn't work for my team.

What I'd like to know from SS: 1) Is this in your list of features that you're currently working on? 2) If it's in your list (hopefully it is since it was requested in multiple posts!), when can we expect a feature like this? 3) If it's not on your list of features, how quickly can it be prioritized?

Thanks so much

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Comments

  • Hi Heather,

    Thanks for checking in, and yes this is on our list to work on. We can't yet give a precise delivery estimate, but it would be approximately Q4 of this year or Q1 of next year. Hope this helps.

    One question for you about this feature: are you looking for it mainly in forms? Or would your team also want to be able to select multiple items in other places like sheets and update requests too?

    Thanks,

    Daniel

  • Richard Rymill SBP
    Richard Rymill SBP ✭✭✭✭✭✭

    Daniel

    Good to hear you are working on this for later this year. The biggest priority has to be creating a form that applies conditional logic so that the next set of questions can change according the the answers chosen previously. 

    We know we can do this in Google forms > that will populate the Smartsheet landing sheet but setting that up is not as intuitive as working with Smartsheet Forms is and so we have had to do it for our clients first, then show them how to manage from there onwards + not everyone wants to go outside Smartsheet  to achieve their needs. 

    If you can just create this conditional Logic in Smartsheet Forms I would focus on that, as it will help the masses. You can add more functionality later! 

    RichardR

     

  • Thank you Richard, we agree that conditional logic is important.

    I'd be interested to hear more detail about what aspects of Smartsheet Forms your clients find easier to use than Google Forms.

    Best regards,

    Daniel

  • Michelle Deane
    edited 10/10/18

    Hi Daniel,

    Now that we are in Q4 2018, any update to the multi-select functionality WITHIN the sheets?? 

    We create artwork.  We put the details of the artwork in Smartsheets and need a multi-select dropdown that will allow user(s) to select each season/year the artwork is offered in.  We also need the user(s) to select every program and every product type the artwork can be used on - this can only be done efficiently/cleanly with multi-select dropdowns.  There is no good way to do that now without adding a ton of columns and adding a ton of confusion.  Looking forward to this functionality as we are trying to guide people toward Smartsheets.

     

    keywords: multi select multi-select

  • Up vote for this feature!

  • Preston
    Preston ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yup. Our team would benefit from this too. Any update?

  • Also voting for this option!

  • Richard Rymill SBP
    Richard Rymill SBP ✭✭✭✭✭✭

    Daniel 

    We all know how easy it is to design and implement Smartsheet Forms and how easily they populate their landing sheet. BUT the need to give "form fillers"  conditional logic choices is not possible in Smartsheet.... YET! 

    To overcome the need for levels of logic to be applied, where depending on the answer to each question, the next set of choices changes to match, on several levels in one form. 

    Currently there are only two ways to populate a Smartsheet using this "Conditional Logic" is by either setting up a Form in Google which can apply that logic or Appsheet which can apply even more logic to Form fillers. 

    So what are the issues with the above solutions? 

    Google Conditional Logic Forms are quite simplistic but not simple to set up without experience and the look and feel if you want to retain Corporate ID are poor. 

    Appsheet is a brilliant solution and we are using it extensively with clients, BUT not everyone is happy to use a 3rd party App which does have a small additional cost to it. No problem for larger corporates who have defined needs but for the mass of Smaller, less well funded Smartsheet users, they just want you to make it possible for multiple choice selection, using Conditional logic in Smartsheet..... and not as a premium add-on but FREE with the license. 

    Hopefully this info will help you bring this to our users asap? 

    Apologies for the slow reply, i missed your question back in July. 

    RichardR 

    Smarter Business Processes (who are Smartsheet and Appsheet Consultants)

     

  • Updates on this feature request?  You can now multi-select contacts!  So multi-select for normal dropdowns should be shortly behind?

    It would ideal to have a preference of how the multi-select was displayed in the sheet.  I.E. if there was a ":" or a ";" or some other separator between the items selected as well as if there is a space or not.  This is necessary if you want to use smartsheet to feed other applications.  For example our smart sheet is used for creating the tags (descriptors) for pieces of content.  Then the content is feed into a content distribution system where the end users can search for the content based upon the tags.  I need to go seamlessly and automatically between Smartsheet and this distribution system.

     

  • I would agree with this as well.  This has been a reoccuring request from many of my clients.

  • Another upvote for this feature.  We are also using Smartsheet to tag content.  We need to be able to add multiple tags.

  • Maris
    Maris
    edited 01/08/19

    Hi SS developers.

    Our projects would benefit greatly from having cells with a multiple choice drop-down in our sheets (not forms). 

    We ask users to indicate a number of items from a finite list (the list is known to the users but we cannot include it in the sheet since there is not multiple choice possible). Currently we provide free text cells, which leads to a lot of manual work when analyzing the data.

  • Our use of Smartsheet would be 10-fold if we had this feature! 



    I'm building a Content Gap template... basically mapping out what content we have on our website, what type (article, case study, testimonial), format (video, blog, PDF), audience (persona 1, persona 2), funnel stage, state of content (good, bad), relevant product / service, etc.



    For many categories, a piece of content can be relevant for multiple inputs. For instance, a blog post might have a video in it and relate to multiple product / service. Currently, the only way to treat this is to keep adding rows and do a check box.... would be WAY better to have a dropdown and be able to select multiple options! Or even just have row categories and sub categories like Excel offers. 

    PLEASE PLEASE add this feature SOON!

  • Richard Rymill SBP
    Richard Rymill SBP ✭✭✭✭✭✭

    Smartsheet introduced us to Appsheet some 4 years ago now, to massively extend the functionality of Smartsheet for those that need conditional Logic and "database like qualities" but still get the work done in Smartsheet. 

    Yes there is a small cost per user of @ $5 per month for Appsheet, but these solutions we are building resolve all the issues mentioned above. 

    For some users, an API solution from our DEV team in Canada may be even better? depends on the detail as ever? 

    So while we wait to see if Smartsheet will provide this added functionality "out of the box", you can have this solution next week. See short explanatory video. 

    https://www.smarterbusinessprocesses.com/appsheet/

    Free demo and initial consultancy for anyone needing this. 

    RichardR 

    @SBP

  • GilN
    GilN ✭✭

    +1 for multi-select in dropdowns please and thanks.