Capture the date in the cell when it is populated

Vivien Chong · 04/09/20

If I would like to capture the date of a cell when an update is made, is there any way to do so without using 3rd party integration?

Cannot use modified date by system as there will be more updating of data in that row.

I understand that we can always put another date column to manually input the date, but just trying to find if it can be automated, as there are many dates to be captured in a row for KPI calculation purpose.

2 scenarios:

1) I want to capture a particular update date. Is there a way to do so?

2) If I just want to capture the date when the status show "completed", is there a way to do so?

Thank you.

Andrée Starå · 04/09/20

Hi Vivien,

Yes there is.

You can use the copy row to other sheet workflow to get the date and then use a VLOOKUP or INDEX/MATCH to collect it back to the sheet.

Do you have a unique identifier you could use?

Make sense?

Would that work?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

✅Did my post help or answer your question or solve your problem? Please help the Community by marking it as the accepted answer/helpful. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!

Vivien Chong · 04/10/20

Thanks Andree. What you said make sense.

Just that the workaround seem like lots of work to just get a date. However, it's just a 1 time set up and things will fall into places.

Thanks for the workaround.

Andrée Starå · 04/10/20

Excellent!

Happy to help!

Yes, it's a little work.

Smartsheet is working on a time feature, so hopefully, we won't need it later.

✅Remember! Did my post help or answer your question or solve your problem? Please help the Community by marking it as the accepted answer/helpful. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!

cupton · 05/03/20

Andre, would you please provide more details on the procedure you described? Or, if it's been described elsewhere, where?

Andrée Starå · 05/21/20

Hi @cupton

I'd be happy to share an example.

Please send me an email at andree@workbold.com, and I'll share it with you.

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 help the Community by marking it as the accepted answer/helpful. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!

Jim Rood · 07/13/20

Andrée Starå

Apr 9, 2020

Hi Vivien,
Yes there is.
You can use the copy row to other sheet workflow to get the date and then use a VLOOKUP or INDEX/MATCH to collect it back to the sheet.
Do you have a unique identifier you could use?
Make sense?
Would that work?
I hope that helps!
Be safe and have a fantastic week!
Best,
Andrée Starå
Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD
✅Did my post help or answer your question or solve your problem? Please help the Community by marking it as the accepted answer/helpful. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!

This is helpful in the absence of being able to use the system Modified field as a date/time stamp within a specified column.

Andrée Starå · 07/14/20

Hi @Jim Rood

Glad to hear that it's helpful!

Be safe and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

SteveReed@WK · 07/26/20

Andree,

I have a question for building on this trick to capturing a transaction date. I am trying to use this approved date field (derived via VLOOKUP) to trigger the next step of a workflow. Here is the scenario:

1 - someone posts a document and that Posted Date is captured via the above method

2- I am using that date field to change a QA Trigger column to 'On' but that formula is not recognizing the Posted Date properly to set the value to 'On.'

3- My other option to set the value to 'On' is the Posted Location column, but that is also coming in via a VLOOKUP, and is not working in exactly the same way. (However, if i enter either the Posted Date or Posted Location values manually, it works beautifully).

Do you have any thoughts or insights you can share with me?

Steve

Andrée Starå · 08/19/20

@SteveReed@WK

Can you describe your process in more detail and maybe share the sheet(s)/copies of the sheet(s) or some screenshots? (Delete/replace any confidential/sensitive information before sharing) That would make it easier to help. (share too, andree@getdone.se)

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