Applies to

Smartsheet
  • Pro
  • Business
  • Enterprise

Capabilities

Who can use this capability

Users that are the sheet Owner or have Admin sharing permissions can create and edit formulas on a sheet. Users with Editor sharing permissions can also create and edit formulas in unlocked cells on a sheet.

Automatically update the TODAY function in formulas

The TODAY function in Smartsheet returns the current date within formulas.

PLANS

  • Pro
  • Business
  • Enterprise

Permissions

Users that are the sheet Owner or have Admin sharing permissions can create and edit formulas on a sheet. Users with Editor sharing permissions can also create and edit formulas in unlocked cells on a sheet.

For the TODAY function to recognize what the current date is, the sheet must be updated and saved. If there is a chance that a sheet may not have enough daily activity for TODAY to update, there are few different workflows you can leverage to automatically update your sheet.

Option 1: Record a date in a helper column 

First, add a Date type of column to your sheet and add yesterday's date (or any date in the past) into a cell. You can then hide this column. 

Next, create a time-based workflow to add today's date into that new column using the Record a Date action. 

To create this workflow:

  1. Select Automation > Create workflow from scratch.
  2. Title your workflow (for example, "Daily Update").
  3. Set the trigger to When a date is reached.
  4. Select Run Once and change this to Custom > Repeat every Day.
  5. Select an early morning time for the trigger (e.g. 2:00AM).
  6. Configure a condition block for where the new date column is in the past. 
  7. Set the Action block to Record a date in that date column.

This image shows daily update workflow example.

Remember to add at least one past date into your new date column so that your workflow has a cell to update tomorrow. 
 

Option 2: Record a date and use cell links to update multiple sheets

If you have multiple sheets to update, you can set up the date column and workflow described above in a separate reference sheet. Next, use a cell link to bring the date from this reference sheet into your current sheet that contains the TODAY function. 

The automation will add a new date to the reference sheet daily, which will in turn update your formula sheet via the cell-link data change.

Option 3: Use Bridge to schedule a daily sheet save

If you have access to Bridge, see the Bridge article explaining the Schedule Daily Sheet Save template. 

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