Control Centre: new profile data is not cell-linking in the summary sheet

Brucey
Brucey ✭✭✭✭
edited 06/06/23 inAdd Ons and Integrations

I have added 3 data sets via global updates, the columns appeared in my summary sheet automatically as usual but the data itself isn't auto cell-linking like it has previously.

I have made sure the column types are dates as all the data is a date. I have removed all column formulas from the summary sheet as requested.

I have spoken to the IT/ help team but they take ages to get back and aren't very clear. Frustrating as I have added some new profile data recently and didn't have an issue! I'm not sure what has changed.


Anyone have any suggestions?

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Answers

  • Kleerfyre
    Kleerfyre ✭✭✭✭✭✭

    Have you checked the logs in Control Center for any errors on the newly created projects using this new data? Does the new columns have a cell in the Summary section of your template to link to?

    Jonathan Sanders, CSM

    "Change is always scary because it is unknown, but facing the unknown is what makes us stronger."

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  • Matt Johnson
    Matt Johnson ✭✭✭✭✭✭

    Hi@Brucey

    Here's a confirmed fix but depending on how many projects you have it might not be a perfect fit as it has to be done 1 project at a time.

    Go to the list of projects in Control Center and click the edit pencil on the far right. Then, in the edit screen, there is an option on the lower right called "Update Reporting". Click that and the cell link(s) should appear in the Summary Rollup.

    I hope that helps.

    Matt

    Matt Johnson

    Sevan Technology

    Smartsheet PLATINUM Partner

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  • Brucey
    Brucey ✭✭✭✭

    Hi@Kleerfyre

    I am getting the following error:

    Summary Reporting: fail to update cell links to reporting sheet 'RCD Development Projects Summary'. Error message: An unexpected error has occurred. Please contact the Support team athttps://help.smartsheet.com/contactfor assistance.(4000)

    and yes - when I carried out the global update, the cells (rows really) were added to the template projects (in the project plan).


    @Matt Johnsonthe above error occurs when I try to update the programme and individual projects!


    Thanks both,

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  • Kleerfyre
    Kleerfyre ✭✭✭✭✭✭

    Are you trying to link data from the start date and finish date columns? If so, you can't do that in Control Center. You will need to create helper columns for those dates.

    Jonathan Sanders, CSM

    "Change is always scary because it is unknown, but facing the unknown is what makes us stronger."

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  • Brucey
    Brucey ✭✭✭✭

    @KleerfyreI'm not linking them directly, I have my profile data in a summary above the the Gantt data, so nothing comes directly from them, but the summary data takes it from the Finish column using : =IFERROR(DATEONLY(Finish$42), "") + ""

    Is that what you mean by helper column?

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  • Kleerfyre
    Kleerfyre ✭✭✭✭✭✭

    And if you do that with linking, you will always get the error. It doesn't matter where that comes from, it matters if you make your project summary link any cell in start or finish date column. You cannot link those without getting an error. I went through that and it took me forever to figure that out. When I did, I created helper columns that any date cell will link to in the summary section of the project template.

    Jonathan Sanders, CSM

    "Change is always scary because it is unknown, but facing the unknown is what makes us stronger."

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  • Brucey
    Brucey ✭✭✭✭

    It is working for every other column! my 'Helper'/ summary columns looks at the finish date column. So I am not using any start/ finish column to cell link directly to the summary sheets.

    也许你能提供一个例子,你意味着什么n by helper column? I'm using a task/ summary column instead of directly linking as you said.

    I had Cheetah Transformations (Smartsheet approved consultant) help me set it up and they wrote all these formulas and everything else works perfectly. They believe it's a technical error.

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  • Kleerfyre
    Kleerfyre ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    Screenshot 2023-06-06 103204.png

    Look at this screen shot. It shows what I am talking about. Control Center doesn't like it when you try doing any links to system columns.

    Jonathan Sanders, CSM

    "Change is always scary because it is unknown, but facing the unknown is what makes us stronger."

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  • Kleerfyre
    Kleerfyre ✭✭✭✭✭✭

    And if you had a consultant help with the set up, I would suggest you get with them first on fixing the issue. They know what they built and will be able to help pinpoint the issue quicker. I would always go to them first seeing that each person that builds a Program in Control Center will know what they did to make it work for that specific case.

    Jonathan Sanders, CSM

    "Change is always scary because it is unknown, but facing the unknown is what makes us stronger."

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  • Brucey
    Brucey ✭✭✭✭
    2023-06-06 16_34_41-(2) RC128 - Summerway - Project Plan - Origination - Smartsheet.com.png


    I'm doing the same - using this 'role' column. All the other pieces of information eg - Baseline start, Project Type all link through.

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  • Brucey
    Brucey ✭✭✭✭

    Okay I'll ask them again, it's a tricky one.


    Appreciate the help !

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Categories

Hey @Julie Fortney<\/a> <\/p>

I'll answer what I can and shout out to @Brian_Richardson<\/a> for back up. <\/p>

#1 Report Filters- To my knowledge there isn't a direct Report Filter update however I wondered if the column was a dropdown list - if so, Bridge can update dropdown lists and if the filter was set to select all it made me wonder if the filter would pick it up new selections. (Datashuttle also updates dropdown lists if this method works)<\/p>

#2 I've had problems with a slow sheet erroring out in Bridge. The sheet was massive and Bridge would time-out. Bridge did not help this sheet (it might have been too large for anything to help)<\/p>

#3 -I don't have any experience with Control Center, so sorry, I can't answer those questions<\/p>

My fav Bridge solutions?<\/p>

-Capturing Approver Names in approval workflows<\/p>

-Adding rows - same sheet, different sheets, Child rows to Parents, On a weekly cadence, Adding New rows of acquired data to a status update sheet which feeds into a dashboard report<\/p>

-Translating Employee Ideas from their native tongue to English<\/p>

-Checking FedEx Tracking Status on a sheet's worth of shipments<\/p>

I hope this helps<\/p>

Kelly<\/p>"},{"commentID":373322,"body":"

Hey @Julie Fortney<\/a> !<\/p>

  1. In general you cannot update reports with bridge or the API, you can only get report information and details. So unless you are able to come up with a different solution you may be out of luck. Although, if this is a control center program, you may be able to use \"Dynamic Reports\" which adds new sheets to reports every time a project is provisioned (and removes as projects are archived). <\/li>
  2. Maybe using JavaScript in bridge would help, hard to say. <\/li>
  3. Unfortunately not.. You can not programmatically retrieve a form link (Big functionality gap in my opinion). We have begged Smartsheet to dynamically update forms with control center. Also you can not update the contents of widgets in dashboards with bridge or the api.<\/li>
  4. You could definitely set up a solution to achieve this. It would involve using a summary sheet in your blueprint where the link to your template sheets is profile data on your summary sheet. From there you can get the sheet id for each project in bridge, loop through them and make updates.<\/li><\/ol>"},{"commentID":373373,"body":"

    @Kelly Moore<\/a> thanks for the shout out :-) but I'm not sure I can help more than what's already been posted. <\/p>

    @Julie Fortney<\/a> in general Bridge is an API tool. You can setup multi-branched workflows in Bridge with pre-set API calls and utilities. You can also do custom HTTP calls to any API that you have access to in the cloud. So anything you can do with API calls you can do with Bridge. It also, importantly, allows you to run Javascript code using the results of your API calls, and to trigger workflows on changes to Smartsheet content or on any other webhook that you can receive from other tools.<\/p>

    There's a fair amount of Smartsheet API methods that are prebuilt into Bridge, but not all of them. So if you're looking at the Bridge documentation for Smartsheet<\/a> integrations and not finding what you need, you can also look at the Smartsheet API documentation<\/a> to see if there's something there to help you out. If you find an API method to use that's not already pre-built as an integration, then you can use the Custom HTTP Call step to directly call the API. You just have to provide the Smartsheet API with an API token, which you can assign to yourself in your Personal Settings.<\/p>

    It looks like your specific questions were answered pretty comprehensively by Kelly and Samuel but here's my 2c:<\/p>

    1. Because you cannot adjust report filters using the Smartsheet API, you cannot do this with Bridge. Here's the Reports methods<\/a>. You might want to consider a workaround for the process of having reports hand-updated with new job numbers. Perhaps leverage a creation date or flag new items with a checkbox that's cleared once the conditions are met that would cause the project to fall back off the report? You can also explore the \"contact has any of current user\" filter to pick up specific jobs for the viewer?<\/li>
    2. You could definitely use Bridge to read one sheet on a schedule or trigger, perform calculations using Javascript or the included utilities, and post the results. It may be faster and more stable than a huge number of formulas in Smartsheet, but I'm not 100% sure it would be. I would probably first explore using Data Mesh, which is setup to do this in a much more friendly way. If you don't already use Data Mesh, it's basically a batch index\/match tool. <\/li>
    3. As Samuel said, there's no API for updating widgets on a dashboard or retrieving a form URL. Also, I tested copying a dashboard and sheet in a common folder, where the form link was embedded in the dash, and unfortunately it does not update the form link. Seems like a gap and would be a good enhancement request. You could potentially work around this by having a common sheet with the form to capture entries, have a dropdown in that form for the project name that you can keep updated with Bridge, do a lookup to the sheet ID that the entry should go to on a sheet that Bridge maintains, and then copy the form responses into the individual project sheets using Bridge. I know that's pretty roundabout.<\/li>
    4. As Samuel and Kelly said, you can push dropdown updates through Bridge, it works better than Data Shuttle. You wouldn't need to maintain a separate lookup sheet though, if you create a report that contains the dropdown columns across your various created sheets, and then read that report with Bridge, the return from the API includes the source sheet ID and column ID for each report row. You can then leverage that to point Bridge at the right columns across your sheets without having to maintain a separate lookup.<\/li><\/ol>

      At Iron Mountain we use Bridge for a variety of use cases, here's the most effective ones:<\/p>