SmartSheet: Can a Form Show Values From Multiple Sheets?

Answer

No, a form cannot directly show values from multiple sheets in SmartSheet. However, you can use an intake sheet to collect data in one place, and then use automation to copy the values to multiple sheets. The intake sheet is a valid solution for almost all scenarios, and this tutorial will show you how to do that.

When Do You Want Your Form to Show Values From Multiple Sheets?

If you want your form to pull values from multiple sheets, you probably want to create one form that adds data to several sheets at once.

For example, you may want to keep personal information in Sheet A and job details in Sheet B, but you want the customer to fill out just one form.

Sheet A could store data like the Customer Name and Birth Date, while Sheet B stores their Employer and Job Title. But you want all this information entered in one form.

The problem is that SmartSheet forms can only pull values from one sheet at a time.

Creating the Intake Sheet

1. Create a third sheet with columns from Sheet A and Sheet B.
2. Create a form using all the columns from this new sheet.

This new sheet is called the "Intake Sheet". The user will enter all their data in the form linked to this sheet. Then, the other sheets can pull the data from the intake sheet.

Solution 1: Set Up Automation

Next, set up automation to copy the data from the Intake Sheet to Sheet A and Sheet B.

1. Click Automation.
2. Click Create from template.

3. Click Copy a row to another sheet when specified criteria are met.

4. Click Use template.
5. Click Select a sheet.
6. Select the sheet that you want to send the rows to.
7. Click Save.

This will automatically copy new rows from the intake sheet to Sheet A. You can set up another automation for Sheet B.

The downside of this solution is that all the data gets copied to both Sheet A and Sheet B, so you’ll need to hide the columns you don’t want to show. You can do this by right-clicking the column and selecting Hide Column.

If you don’t want to hide columns, you can use reports for a cleaner view.

Solution 2: Use Reports Instead of Sheets (Optional)

Instead of copying data to Sheet A and Sheet B, you can create reports. Report A will only show the personal information from the intake sheet, and Report B will show the job information.

With reports, you don’t have to hide any columns because you only display the data you want.

Here’s how it looks:

Additional Resources

• How to sort automatically in SmartSheet
• How to generate PDFs for grouped and summarized reports in SmartSheet
• How to enable spell checking in SmartSheet