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    Change How Dependencies Appear? - Would rather see task title vs row number

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    in Smartsheet Basics

    My engineers and technical team(s) have requested a bounty list be created. Obviously setting up a dependency is easy enough; however, it would be be more useful to see the task name that the task is dependent upon instead of the row number. Is there a way to do this by changing a setting that I don't know about? Or would it be easier to do a formula which calls for that specific rows task name? If anyone has seen this done or has an example I would appreciate it.

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    • ✭✭✭✭✭✭
      edited 02/05/25 Answer ✓

      This approach will work for tasks that have a single predecessor.

      First your sheet needs to be able to detect the row number for each row. To enable:

      1. Add an system Auto number colum (e.g., "Auto")
      2. Add a Row column with the formula: =VALUE(MATCH(Auto@row, Auto:Auto, 0))

      The add a column to return the name of the dependent task (e.g., "Dependent On") with the column formula that will look for the row number that matches the value in the predecessor column and then return the task name:

      =IFERROR(INDEX(COLLECT([Primary Column]:[Primary Column], Row:Row, Predecessors@row), 1), ">1 Predecessor")

      image.png

      You will still need to enter predecessors as row numbers, but you can basically return a friendlier name for your engineers and technical teams to referenece.

      I'm sure this could be adapted with more advanced formulas to account for more than one predecessor. Happy to help with additional refinement offline if needed.

      Jessica Selano | Selano Consulting

      jessica@selanoconsulting.com

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    Answers

    • ✭✭✭✭✭✭
      edited 02/05/25 Answer ✓

      This approach will work for tasks that have a single predecessor.

      First your sheet needs to be able to detect the row number for each row. To enable:

      1. Add an system Auto number colum (e.g., "Auto")
      2. Add a Row column with the formula: =VALUE(MATCH(Auto@row, Auto:Auto, 0))

      The add a column to return the name of the dependent task (e.g., "Dependent On") with the column formula that will look for the row number that matches the value in the predecessor column and then return the task name:

      =IFERROR(INDEX(COLLECT([Primary Column]:[Primary Column], Row:Row, Predecessors@row), 1), ">1 Predecessor")

      image.png

      You will still need to enter predecessors as row numbers, but you can basically return a friendlier name for your engineers and technical teams to referenece.

      I'm sure this could be adapted with more advanced formulas to account for more than one predecessor. Happy to help with additional refinement offline if needed.

      Jessica Selano | Selano Consulting

      jessica@selanoconsulting.com

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    • ✭

      This is perfect, thank you so much!

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      Coming back to say that this worked EXACTLY as I was picturing. Thank you so much Jessica!

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