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Request: Allow cell references from different sheets

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BMar
BMar
edited 12/09/19 in Archived 2016 Posts

I'm really enjoying the powerful abilities of Smartsheet, and especially the ways in which it's more flexible than Excel.  I have to say, though, it's getting more difficult to accept that formulas just can't reference data from other sheets.  This is particularly frustrating when you consider the powerful functions that become less useful when limited to local sheet data.  

 

Take the WORKDAY function, for example.  It's great that you can specify a holiday_range for customized.  This is potentially extremely useful for managing schedules across teams and a whole company... until you realize that you have to add your list of holidays to every single sheet that uses it.  (Why not just have a separate Holiday sheet and reference that range of dates from the multiple other sheets that will use it?)

 

There's the same difficulty for other functions like INDEX, LOOKUP, MATCH, etc.  (I'm sure other users have countless examples, too!)

 

Smartsheet team, please let us use your excellent formula functions to their fullest potential!  Save us the trouble of duplicating cell data (human error!) and piling on hidden cells in places where they don't belong.  Let us reference cell data in different sheets!

Comments

  • J. Craig Williams
    J. Craig Williams ✭✭✭✭✭✭
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    BMar,

     

    For the holiday issue, I create a sheet for all of the holidays and then assign persons to each holiday (10 holidays, 10 people, 100 rows)

    The sheet is resource enabled so shows up when I am planning as over-allocation if I have them working a holiday.

    Not as nice as have them shift around the non-work days but my teams were international and had different holidays for person, not per project, so that was a limitiation anyway.

     

    I think they are working on cross sheet formulas but it may be a ways a way.

     

    Craig

     

  • BMar
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    Thanks for the suggested workaround.

     

    Yes, I'm sure it's on their list already, but I'm just trying to raise more support to speed it along.  I'm told that the developers track these enhancement requests by the number of reqests from users (which is why their staff is so good about replying to each of these topics).  Once they reach a threshhold number they add it to their development roadmap.  I'm hoping that more users will chime in here to accellerate the effort.

  • Jason2
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    +1 for cross-sheet cell referencing.

  • Claire Diener
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    +1 from me too!

  • dantheman
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    +1 from me as well

  • Kent Vaughn
    Kent Vaughn ✭✭✭✭
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    +1 from me as well. 

     

    As we (my company) continue to look at SmartSheet deployment,  issues such as this continue to be an impediment to further proliferation. 

     

     

  • Dominic Chan
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    +1 from me as well. 

  • MLO_Arrow
    MLO_Arrow
    edited 01/30/17
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    +1 from me.  I really need the Lookup function to work between sheets.

  • Jessica Chandler
    Jessica Chandler ✭✭✭
    edited 02/03/17
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    +1 from me too! Looking up data across sheets to return a certain piece of data to a specified cell (like a vlookup formula) would be the missing link for me and my team.

  • Mark Fern
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    +1 I'm the SS administrator for a global software company and have requests to enable multiple calendar sheets be indexed by a master so that teams can coordinate their meetings with manager availabiiltiy.  The model of distributed sheets that feed forumulas on a master is powerful for large, distributed enterprises. Other cases like supply chain or marketing campaign launches could benefit from this too. I hope the Smartsheet product team will consider it for the near-term roadmap. 

  • Chipgiii
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    Do references in the same sheet count towards maximum number allowed?  Or, is it only references to other sheets.

     

    Thanks,

    Chip

This discussion has been closed.