When is Smartsheet going to bring native Managed Dynamic Dropdown menus ?

Michael Bull · 04/14/21

One of the distinguishing features of Smartsheet is the guided data entry via dropdown menus. This is awesome. Really helps to bring order into the data.

However managing the dropdown menu content is 100% manual and for more than one sheet rapidly becomes a colossal pain in the neck.

Even Microsoft Excel allows to create guided cell data entry based on dynamically calculated external links. There are external API vendors which solve this between "not so bad but basic" and "extortion" level.

For me, I am using Smartsheet (multiple, for all kinds of purposes) extensively on my current project. But I am the only licensed user, so I am stuck with the update task, and I find the constant task of updating the dropdown menus (something as basic as a contact list which is always changing) so mindblowingly offturning that I am hesitant to advocate the further use of Smartsheet in GE , and I am certain that on my next project I will scale back the use of Smartsheet.

When will Smartsheet bring managed dynamic dropdown menu content? Thanks a lot for your action.

SJ Sellers · 04/14/21

YES! THIS 1,000% THIS!!!

Our implementation will potentially involve Hundreds of Workspaces and Thousands of Sheets. To manually update the drop-downs on all this content is, as Michael says above, mindblowingly offputting.

Like Michael - we need to ensure all the sheets within a single Workspace have consistent Contact Lists which is always changing. It is inexcusable in my mind that there is not an easier way to do this.

HELP!!!!!

Kimberly Gammon · 04/14/21

Completely agree this is a GAPING HOLE in the functionality!

It's appalling that Smartsheet doesn't provide the support to leverage cross-sheet linking capabilities to dynamically drive the contents of a drop-down (aka the equivalent of using a named-range in excel). The manual effort and amount of time that is wasted on drop-down value maintenance across a suite of sheets for a given project is a detriment to the efficient use smartsheet.

Both the contacts lists (which is it's own feature/object type) and user-defined columns that need their own user-defined list of valid values; they need to be able to be maintained from a central place within a Workspace or within a project folder.

As Michael indicated, the more you use Smartsheet the bigger this issue becomes. This is a gap that limits the effective growth and broad penetration of Smartsheet within an organization, because there is an exponential increase in sheet maintenance costs the more the product is used.

Do yourself and all of the worksheet owners a service and find a way of supporting automated maintenance of drop-down lists.

The geek in me can't resist providing a suggestion.

In the column properties dialog, add an input field that allows the user to link the drop down to

a) one or more contact groups (for a contact type column) OR

b) to a cell or a group of cells from another sheet (for a single or multi-select column type).

The linkages could be evaluated upon sheet opening or refresh to reduce the performance impact.

Tim Morgan · 04/17/21

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/78338/when-is-smartsheet-going-to-bring-native-managed-dynamic-dropdown-menus

If I could up-vote this 1000 times I would.

Completely agree with all the sentiments on this thread. This enhancement would not only make my Smartsheet life better, it would help be a better evangelist of the tool.

I wince whenever I'm coaching someone in my organization on how to use Smartsheet, and they ask me how to do this... 😬

Julia C Peterson · 07/03/21

What about using data shuttle(data uploader formerly) to update the dropdowns? You can do it from onedrive/google sheets/or smartsheet (if you have an upload data shuttle workflow to export the master dropdown list)

Andrée Starå · 07/03/21

Hi @Michael Bull, @SJ Sellers, @Kimberly Gammon, @Tim Morgan & @Julia C Peterson

I hope you're well and safe!

I agree with you, Julia, and I set this up for many of my clients, but I've also developed a Master Dropdown process. Each dropdown is collected to a master sheet that is then used to distribute it out to all other columns.

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic 4th of July weekend!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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Umesh Shah · 02/09/22

I learned that this functionality was on the roadmap to be delivered in 2022, but got dropped. unclear why, but you should contact your customer success manager to ask why.

When is Smartsheet going to bring native Managed Dynamic Dropdown menus ?

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