Update Request Column Order

MatR
MatR ✭✭
edited 12/09/19 in Smartsheet Basics

Hopefully someone can help, because I'm getting increasingly frustrated.

As a quick explanation, we have a huge Smartsheet that gets updated by several different departments on a quarterly basis. A webform gets sent out containing certain columns for staff to update. I know that is basic stuff but I've just noticed I use the word 'Form' a lot and what I'm actually referring to is the webform created by an Alert/Action.

I have 2 problems with the creation of 'Request an Update' webforms.

Firstly, when I putting together a 'Request an Update' alert, the columns I add keep shuffling around in the Advanced Options section.

I've attached examples to illustrate my point. The image labelled 'Before' is how I entered the columns and how I wanted them to appear on the form, and the image labelled 'After' is how they appeared after I saved the form and immediately opened it back up again. The shuffled order doesn't affect how they appear on the form itself when the client opens it, but it means that I can't easily add new columns as needed by the client because I can never be sure where they'll appear on the form. There also doesn't appear to be any logic to the new 'shuffled' order. The new order doesn't reflect where they appear in the Smartsheet, the order that they were added, or the column type.

Secondly, the columns I add into the form don't necessarily appear where I want them too. As an example, the image labelled Before is the order I wanted the columns to appear on the form, however the form displays the field named 'Datapoint' immediately following the field named 'Measure Type' rather than after the 'Q1 Actual' field as I wanted.

What am I doing wrong?

Before.jpg

After.jpg

Comments

  • Alejandra
    Alejandra Employee

    Hello MatR,

    At this time the fields of an update request will appear in the same order as they appear in the sheet. There currently isn't a way to change the order of the fields in an update request, but this would be a great opportunity to submit a Product Enhancement Request to let our Product team know that you'd like to have this functionality in Smartsheet. 

    I've also partnered with our Support team to identify what may be causing the behavior illustrated in your screen captures. I'll provide an update once I have more information.

  • MatR
    MatR ✭✭

    Brilliant, thanks.

     

    Also, apologies for the late thanks.

  • Alejandra
    Alejandra Employee

    Hi MatR, 

    No worries! I've heard back from the Escalations team regarding the column reorder —they've confirmed this is an enhancement request. 

    I've gone ahead and submitted this enhancement request to our Product team on your behalf. 

  • @Alejandra

    Any update on this enhancement request? I'm looking to do the same thing but they keep getting reordered in the webform based upon how they appear on the sheet.

  • jshrum
    jshrum ✭✭✭

    Any update on this? I have update requests sent out automatically, and I have a dropdown for the user to select. However, the drop down selection should be after someone uploads a document. Since the attachments piece of the update request is at the bottom, people naturally just hit submit without going back up to update the drop down request. Would be great if we could change the order of the items we need in the update request.