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This Help Article appears in the Smartsheet Intermediate learning track. Get the most out of this learning track by starting at the beginning.
This Help Article appears in the Smartsheet Intermediate learning track. Get the most out of this learning track by starting at the beginning.
Cell linking is useful when you want to consolidate information from multiple sheets. Use cell linking to create a roll-up sheet, to keep track of cross-project date dependencies, or simply to ensure that values stay current across a collection of sheets without a lot of re-typing.
Linking can be done only at the cell level. It's not possible to link entire sheets, columns, or rows. Only cells that contain data, or that previously contained data, can be linked to a destination sheet. Cells can't contain both a hyperlink and a cell link.
There are two types of cell links:
To see the sheet name for an inbound or outbound link, select the linked cell:
To visit the sheet that a value is linked in from our out to, select the linked cell, hover the mouse over the text that appears, and click the link to the sheet:
To delete an inbound or outbound link, hover the mouse over the information that appears and click the delete link.
To create a cell link, you must have at least Viewer permission to the source sheet and Editor permission to the destination sheet.
When you create an inbound link, an outbound link is created automatically in the source sheet.
You can select multiple cells to create a link to each one:
You can create links of up to 500 cells from the same source sheet at a time and can have a total of 20,000 inbound links in a destination sheet.
To prevent infinite approval loops, cells which contain cross-sheet formulas or cell links will not trigger an automation which automatically changes the sheet (Move Row, Copy Row, Lock Row, Unlock Row, Approval Request). To work around this, consider using time-based automation or recurrence workflows.
The sheet owner and collaborators with Editor or Admin access can edit or remove cell links.
You can edit an inbound link by double-clicking it and selecting new source cells from the Cell Linking form.
To remove an inbound link from a cell or group of cells:
Outbound links must be removed one at a time. To remove an outbound link:
NOTE: Deleting sheet rows that include linked cells will impact the cell links. Deleting a row that includes a source cell will create a broken cell link in the destination sheet. Deleting a row with a linked destination cell will remove the link from the source sheet.
Use Paste Special if you are starting in the source sheet or if you want to create links to the same source cell(s) in multiple destination sheets.
To create a link using the Paste Special feature:
Cell links can't be created in the Attachments or Discussions columns.
If you have dependencies enabled on a Project/Gantt sheet, you can’t create inbound links in the following types of cells on that sheet:
However, you can create links in the duration and start date columns (if no predecessor exists for the row). The finish date will be calculated automatically, and you can add predecessors after creating the link.
Cells that have inbound links also can’t be edited in the following contexts: