Automatic item numbering

Trevor Textor

Please add a vote for me for this feature.

M Thompson

Please add my vote for WBS numbering as well. WBS is basis for Project Management and it should be a feature in Smartsheet.

StuRoss

add my vote for this feature

Hugebean

Um...Smartsheet...Smartsheet...SMARTSHEET!!!

What's the status of this feature? I sold Smartsheet to my team saying that we needed collaborative project management capabilities beyond what something like Basecamp (or similar) can provide for complex engineering. But simple stuff goes missing and then ignored for 2.5 years despite requests.

My team is now rebelling. The engineers are resorting to using MS Project just because Smartsheet doesn't have WBS auto-numbering. The management team doesn't use it for general task management because it requires a lot of setup to get useful Sights/Dashboards (no templates) and the admin staff is not using it because of other simple oversights (e.g. no functionality for recurring tasks).

You're stuck in the middle...too hard for general use, too simple for hardcore use. Smartsheet has great promise, but the little things are killing it.

Please add this feature soon, or at least own up to the fact that it's nowhere on your planned development pipeline so that we can move on.

Sincerely,

Grumpy, Ignored User

Trevor Textor

Wow, Hugebean nailed it. We're actively making migration plans to get off of Smartsheet for exactly those reasons.

Josh Garcia

Automatic numbering for Work Breakdown Structure - pretty standard stuff.

stan.shaw33056

WBS should be built in. Very surprised it isn't.

Aaron A.

I have the same need for WBS numbers and here's what I came up with:

1. Create 3 Columns (all in text/number format, don't use auto-numbering)

• RowID
• Level
• WBS

2. Put the number 1 in the top row for all 3 (or for the WBS, whatever number you're starting with)

3. In the second row put the following formulas:

• RowID: =RowID1+1
• Level: =COUNT(ANCESTORS()) + 1
• WBS: =IF(Level2 = 1, COUNTIF(Level$1:Level2, 1), "" + PARENT() + "." + COUNTIFS(Level$1:Level2, Level2, [Row ID]$1:[Row ID]2, >(PARENT([Row ID]2))))

The WBS Column should now do all the automatic WBS numbering.

Hope this helps!

Aaron

Hugebean

Aaron A: I tested this...it seems to work well.

Still disappointed that the Smartsheet team hasn't built this in (and won't comment on the subject in the Community), but this is a very usable workaround.

Thanks very much for sharing it.

Tim Möhle

Another user in favor of the WBS numbering system feature!!!

Tony Weber

Travis,

What's the status of this?

J Kocar

Aaron, this is brilliant. Thank you for sharing.

JHeal77

I am a bit surprised that this isn't included in the software as of yet. I have been following this topic for almost two years. In that time we have evolved our PM strategies and started to make investments in Smartsheet. As it sits now, we are starting to look at Smartsheet in it's paid form as overpriced and underdeveloped.

Karen H

I'm getting an error (#UNPARSEABLE) in the WBS column when I try Aaron A's solution. Has anyone else encountered this / can anyone suggest what I might be doing wrong?

Thanks!

inglenn

Remove the spaces in Row ID to get RowID. Worked for me.

=IF(Level2 = 1, COUNTIF(Level$1:Level2, 1), "" + PARENT() + "." + COUNTIFS(Level$1:Level2, Level2, [RowID]$1:[RowID]2, >(PARENT([RowID]2))

Works well!