'Helper' Column Management via New Column Type (or Side Panel?)

Kevin M.

Many of us, if not most, use one or morehelper columnsto achieve the Sheet functions that we need. Good practice is to hide the helper columns (when possible) so that the sheet user isn't bombarded with noise.

Unfortunately, hidden columns still appear while inCard View. My solution for this is to move all of the helper columns to the end of the sheet, add a new column to the right of the last column of relevance to the sheet user and populate it with " End of Card " or something similar. When scrolling down the card, the red stop sign emojis stand out and the user knows they don't need to scroll through the remainingnfields.

A newColumn Typenamed "Helper" could solve this. It would be even better to build this in conjunction with a menu option tospecificallyHide/UnhideHelper Columns.

Hidden columns of theHelpertype would:

• not appear in Card View
• not appear in published versions of the sheet
• not appear in the column selection dropdowns for report and sheet filters OR,
• ...simply shove them to the bottom of these lists and denote their helper status somehow (斜体, perhaps?)

Hopefully, the community can help me fine-tune this feature request.

-Kevin

P.S. I thought of the "column type" solutionwhile typing up another solution idea for this problem.If the above doesn't gain any traction, maybe this will:

。[H]噢阿布t adding a new panel to the right-side toolbar -- similar in function to theSheet Summarypanel -- to contain the helper formulas. Each row could look at the specific value for the helper formulas for that row.

Helper columns could be "moved" to this panel via a toggle in the context menu when right-clicking on the column header, similar to theLock/Unlock Columntoggle. Perhaps this option only appears if the column has acolumn formula.

Michelle Choate 2

I love this idea! I use helper columns for formulas, reports, and so much more. Our project sheets have sometimes upwards of twenty hidden helper columns. It would be fantastic to have them hidden in card view and published versions of the sheet.

Adrian Mandile CHESS

Hi@Kevin M.,@Michelle Choate 2,

I like this idea also. I go so far to suggest that we have 'Hidden' as a checkbox attribute in the column properties for all column types. In this way we could use a'Show/Hide Columns'toggle feature that would re-hide all the column that we want to hide at once, instead of having to re-select the specific columns, wherever they may be located in our sheet.

This 'Hidden' attribute could then carry over to the various views as a choice (show 'hidden' columns or hide them).

Kevin M.

I go so far to suggest that we have 'Hidden' as a checkbox attribute in the column properties for all column types. In this way we could use a'Show/Hide Columns'toggle feature that would re-hide all the column that we want to hide at once...

This would be a great addition to this request,@Adrian Mandile CHESS