Conditional Formatting

Conditional formatting allows you to format cells within your Smartsheet based on rules you define.

Open Conditional Formatting form

• Set or view format rules for a sheet by clicking on the Conditonal Formatting button in the left toolbar:

Add New Rule

• click on the Add New Rule button
• Note: only the sheet owner or admins can set up Format Rules for a sheet

Set Condition

• click on the <set condition> link
• select the column and criteria to be included in your rule (e.g., select Assigned To is Joe)
• when selecting the criteria, you can choose from a simple list of values or click on the define custom criteria link to customize your rule (e.g., if Comments contain “urgent”)

Set Format

• click on the this format link to set the desired format
• you can apply multiple formats at one time (e.g., bold, text color and font size)
• you can select the color for Gantt/Calendar bars using the color picker at the bottom.  The selected bar color will be displayed in the Format Preview on the right.
• you can apply the format to the entire row or select which column(s) you want formatted by clicking on the entire row link

Advanced Features
Click on the down arrow next to a rule for a menu of advanced features.

• You can add multiple conditions to a rule by selecting the menu option “Add Condition (AND)”.  This will use an “and” operator, meaning both conditions must be met for the format to be applied.  For example, you could create a rule with the following two conditions:
  
  • If Assigned To is ‘Bob’ and Status is ‘In Progress’ then apply this format to the entire row
  • The formatting would only be applied for Bob’s tasks that were in progress.

• If rules conflict, the rule that is higher in the list will take priority.  If your first rule formats the rule red when Status is “At Risk” and the second rule formats the row green when Priority is “High”, the first rule will win on a row where both Status is At Risk and Priority is High, so the row will be red, not green.
• You can move rules up or down to get the order of priority that you want.
• You can Clone a rule.  This may be useful if you’ve created a complex rule with lots of values selected and you want a second rule that is similar.  Clone it and then change the cloned rule instead of creating a new one.
• If you want to turn off conditional formatting but you don’t want to delete the rule, you can disable it.  This allows you to go back to the Format Rules form and ‘Enable” the rule to turn it back on without rebuilding the rule.