Dynamic view column is blank when viewed

Question

I recently started using Dynamic View.  I have burned several hours today trying to figure this problem out and I'm hoping someone has an answer.

I have a sheet (Employees) that contains a calculated column (Text) that strips off the first name of an employee - FName.  FName is pulled via INDEX/MATCH into another sheet (Projects) that contains - wait for it - projects.  I have a report built off the Projects sheet that includes the FName column.  Everything is great to this point, first names are everywhere.

I have a Dynamic view that is built on the report and, for some reason, the FName column is blank.  I have added, removed, readded, and recreated the FName field to the DV and Report, hoping to knock something loose in Smartsheet, but nothing I can think of is getting the DV to display the data.

This is what I'm getting in DV:

Here's where I add it to the DV:

Changing whether it is the first field in DV or any other position doesn't change it either.

Thoughts on why this isn't working???  Thank you all!

Kerry St. Thomas · Accepted Answer

Sounds to me like you broke Smartsheet. The end of civilization! :) :) :)

Truthfully though, it sounds like there's something broken technologically - likely on that report.  If it's refusing to save, despite your best efforts… maybe that report's tiny little corner of the internet is just broken. This is not an ideal situation in any sense of the word. But try to rule that out by rebuilding the report FROM SCRATCH (no copy & pasting, no shortcuts at all; just rebuild as if it doesn't currently exist) and then rebuild the Dynamic View too.

If the rebuild continues to behave oddly despite rebuild, you're in my opinion positioned great to file a ticket - you'll have basically done all the initial troubleshooting that you'd be asked to do.

PaulWillman · Accepted Answer

That is what I ended up doing - sorta.  I deleted the first name columns from everywhere in the system and recreated them.  Once I did that, it started working.

I've seen Smartsheet do some pretty strange things in my time, but this one definitely took the cake!

Thanks again for your engagement and working through this with me.  You're part of what makes the Smartsheet community so awesome!