Forms

MongC · 02/06/24

I'm trying to create a form for employees to fill out, then automatically goes to their manager to complete. However, the column I'm using for the manager to complete. The title exceeds the limit. What other options do I have? I do not want to condense the question to make it shorter. Any ideas or suggestions would be great!

KPH · 02/06/24

If you use a form rather than an update request automation, you have the option to add a field label. So your column name could be very short (Question1, for example) and the label would be the full question.

Does this help? If not, can you provide some more details about what you are trying to do? A screenshot of your form and the error would be great.

MongC · 02/06/24

That could work; however, how do I create the manager form to go to them after the employee submits their form?

Employee Completes Form>Goes to Manager to review and will complete their part.

Keith Turk · 02/07/24

I had a similar issue when completing a form and requesting Manager Approval, as far as I am aware you can't trigger a form from a sheet (or from a form), you can only trigger an update request.

Unfortunately Smartsheet does not currently allow for Labels or Help Text in the Update Requests, just the column names.

I resorted to condensing the column name (< 50 characters I think) and explaining in the Message body of the Update Request, what the manager needs to do.

MongC · 02/07/24

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/418274#Comment_418274

Thank you for this Keith. I think this may be the route that we're going to have to go with. I was hoping there was something else out there that I am not aware of that we can use.

KPH · 02/07/24

Hi @MongC

If the details the manager needs to enter are on an existing row in the sheet, then an update request is probably going to be your only option right now, unless the manger does not need to see the existing info and is appending details and you want to manage two sheets with lookups between them. The premium apps might be able to do more, but I am not familiar with them.

If you continue with the update request, you can condense the question names to fit in the column heading as @Keith Turk says, or you could add columns between each answer and populate them with the full question text, then use that text in your update request.

Neither is very elegant, I'm afraid.

Being able to add labels to update requests is something that has been requested in the past. You can add your use case and vote to this thread to show the product team that this is a need:

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/99133/update-request-customization-descriptions-and-headers-like-a-form

Good luck!

Vivien Chong · 02/08/24

I think in the time being when we are unable to customise the Update Request field title, an alternative way could be to write the full question in the message so that at least the manager can have a reference on how to fill up the particular field.

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