Sheet Summary COUNTIF

lmarchisio · 10/17/19

I'm having problems using the COUNTIF function in the new-ish sheet summary. Everytime I sort rows it changes the range. For example, in a summary text field I have

=COUNTIF([Column A]1:[Column A]79, =0)

After sorting by a column it becomes

=COUNTIF([Column A]29:[Column A]43, =0). Or something similar.

The sheet summary is supposed to be used for gathering metrics. But I can't use it for this intended purpose if it means no longer sorting the sheet. Anyone have advice? This can't be the way its meant to work.

Thanks!

Ella · 10/17/19

Try this =COUNTIF([Column A]:[Column A], =0)

lmarchisio · 10/17/19

Thanks Ella, that solved part of it. I'm not getting random ranges anymore. But the formulas are counting the blank rows in addition to those that meet my =0 condition. Smartsheet customer support is looking for answers

Ella · 10/18/19

I will appreciate it if you post after they looked into it and how it was resolved.

Paul Newcome · 10/18/19

Try switching to a COUNTIFS and include additional criteria to specify not blank.

.

If you are counting how many are actually numbers equaling zero:

=COUNTIFS([Column A]:[Column A], AND(NOT(ISBLANK(@cell)), @cell = 0))

.

If you are counting unchecked boxes (or unflagged flags or anything else that uses a 1/0 for true/false)

=COUNTIFS([Column A]:[Column A], = 0, [Different Column]:[Different Column], NOT(ISBLANK(@cell)))

Just replace the [Other Column] with some column that will always have a value in the cell.

This will allow you to reference the entire column and exclude the blanks.

lmarchisio · 10/18/19

Paul has it 99%. COUNTIFS is throwing an incorrect argument error when using NOT(ISBLANK()) as a criteria. The documentation for the function says operators are limited to =, <, >, <>, <= and =>. Which i think may have something to do with it. The final function ended up being:

=COUNTIFS([Column A]:[Column A], 0, [Column B]:[Column B], <>"")

Where, as Paul says, Column B needs to be something that will always be non-empty.

One other note, the online documentation for COUNTIFS distinctly mentions that blank cells should not be counted when using this function. Smartsheet indicated that counting blank checkboxes was "an expected behavior". I've asked them to indicate this in the write-up of the function.

Paul Newcome · 10/21/19

The incorrect argument error may have been thrown because you did not use an @cell reference.

I use NOT(ISBLANK(@cell)) within COUNTIFS functions on almost every single sheet I create as it is part of how I replicate the row number.

=COUNTIFS([Column Name]:[Column Name], OR(NOT(ISBLANK(@cell)), ISBLANK(@cell)))

.

Works like a charm every time as long as you use the @cell.

Ella · 10/22/19

Hey Paul, thank you for sharing your solution! Is there a difference between @cell or @row?

Paul Newcome · 10/22/19

Very much so.

@row tells a formula to look at whatever row the formula is on. It will replace the row number in a cell reference.

@cell basically tells a formula to look at each individual cell within a range as opposed to looking at the range as a whole.

HERE is some documentation on both.

Sheet Summary COUNTIF

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