Extracting a list of unique values from a list on another sheet

@Paul Newcome

In your response on 07/08/20 to Niyati Kumar you indicated "Take a look at THIS SHEET. It provides a solution for parsing a list of unique names from another sheet without needing the helper columns on the source sheet." When selecting THIS SHEET it is no longer published. Would it be possible for you to publish this sheet again? I am looking for a solution to a similar situation.

Thank you.

Paul G.

Generating a list of unique values in Smartsheet should not be hard to do, nor the guidance for it hard to find. Unfortunately, until now that's not been the case. Here is a solution that I believe will work flawlessly, though of course I welcome critique that will exposes its weaknesses so they can be resolved.

You need three primary elements to pull, in this example, the unique states from a sample list of contacts and display them sorted alphabetically in a report:

• a source sheet (this link is to a public-domain sample contacts listing, and none of the info is believed to refer to real people)
• what I call a uniquer sheet containing this column formula in the [UniqueStates] column, next to the [Uniquer] column that contains sequential numbers starting with zero: 
  • =IFERROR(IF(Uniquer@row > 0, (INDEX(DISTINCT({SampleContacts PickState}), Uniquer@row)), IF(Alert@row = "Alert", "+Need more rows in Uniquer", "")), "")
• the resulting report. Any applicable edit in the source data will ultimately appear in the report. Obviously, this report can be included in a dashboard or wherever else useful to you.

Note that cell Alert1 in the Uniquer sheet contains the following formula that must be revised in your case as well: =IF(COUNT(Uniquer:Uniquer) - 1 < COUNT(DISTINCT({SampleContacts PickState})), "Alert", "")

You can play with what you'll find at those links, and clone as needed into your own space. If you name your first (primary) column [Uniquer] and your third column [Alert] then you'll simply need to replace the {bolded items} with your own cross-reference source in both formulas.

I have purposely displayed the error condition to illustrate that you'll be alerted in case of failure to include in your uniquer sheet sufficient sequenced rows to encompass the count of unique conditions you're reporting on. If you edit the Uniquer sheet to remove the error flag, please revert and save before closing your inspection session so the next user will see the error.

The plus-sign in the [UniqueStates] column formula forces the error flag to the top in the report (assuming that column is sorted in ascending order). A conditional format displays the error prominently.

@Paul G., @Brian Becnel, and @SunnyJ,

My apologies for the delayed response. I missed the earlier notifications. The formula to grab the list of unique names would be something along the lines of...

=INDEX(DISTINCT({Source Sheet Name Column}), 1)

You would change the 1 to a 2 to get the second unique name then to a 3 to get the third, so on and so forth.

@Maz Uddin , you’ll need to either perform a manual sort on that column within your Sheet, or else create a Report from that sheet and sort the column there. There’s no other way for the system to know you care about the sequence that the unique values found elsewhere are displayed.

@Paul Newcome I just did the whole thing together and it's working. Thank you.

@Paul Newcome Hi Paul,

I am facing a issue here with this formula

the names are appearing more than once

can you please advise

@Paul Newcome

I was looking to find solution to this topic {extract unique values from one sheet to another} without need of a helper column. I see that you posted a link to a sheet; however, it looks like it was removed. Do you still have this or can direct me accordingly?

I have a source smartsheet with a column ("name") and attempting to identify all unique values into a new target smartsheet in which i summarize data from the source sheet in the target sheet using "name" (e.g. counts, sumifs, etc). Thanks

@john I Here is the post that @Paul G. is referring to.