Reference children, parents, and ancestors with hierarchy functions

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You can use hierarchy in Smartsheet to indent or outdent groups of cells to better show relationships between groups of data. You can place a hierarchy function inside of another function, for example, to automatically reference all indented child cells underneath a parent, even as new child rows are added to the parent row. For example, you could use the following formula to sum all of the child values in a particular column:

=SUM(CHILDREN())

For more information about how to use the functions that allow you to work with hierarchy, see the following in the Smartsheet Function reference:

• CHILDREN Function Reference all child cells underneath a parent.
• PARENT Function Reference the direct parent cell of a child cell.
• ANCESTORS Function Reference all parent cells to a child cell.

Hierarchy functions are not supported in cross-sheet formulas. Attempting to use the CHILDREN, PARENT, and ANCESTORS functions in a cross sheet formula will result in an #UNSUPPORTED CROSS-SHEET FORMULA error in the cell containing the formula. Learn more about formula error messages and referencing data from other sheets.

Keep in mind that users with Editor sharing permissions can only create and edit formulas in unlocked cells on a sheet. 

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