Can You Group Rows in Smartsheet? Sheets and Reports

Yes. In a Smartsheet sheet, you can arrange rows into a collapsible parent-and-child hierarchy; in a row report, you can group records by the values in a column. These methods serve different purposes: hierarchy organizes related rows in the sheet itself, while report grouping creates a grouped view without rearranging the source rows.

Two Ways to Group Rows

When people ask about grouping rows, they may mean either organizing a project plan into sections or collecting records that share a value, such as a department or status. Smartsheet handles those needs in separate ways.

Row hierarchy in a sheet: Indent rows beneath a parent row. The parent and its children can be collapsed or expanded together. This is useful for outlining phases, tasks, and subtasks.
Grouping in a report: Set a report to group its displayed rows by one or more column values. For example, a report can show requests under their assigned teams. The source rows remain in their original sheets.

Neither method is the same as combining cells or creating a permanent folder of records. Hierarchy establishes a structural relationship between rows; report grouping changes how matching records are presented.

How Row Hierarchy Works in a Sheet

A hierarchy has a parent row and one or more child rows beneath it. The child rows need to be positioned directly below the row that will act as their parent. In Grid view, select the row or rows to make children and use the Indent control in the toolbar. Smartsheet places the selected rows one level beneath the preceding row. Use the Outdent control to move them back a level.

Once a parent has child rows, a small expand or collapse control appears beside it. Collapse the parent to hide its children temporarily, or expand it to show them again. This changes the visible outline, not the underlying row data. It is a convenient way to reduce clutter in a project plan while retaining the detail.

Put the intended parent row above the rows that belong beneath it.
Select the rows to make children of that parent.
Choose Indent in the toolbar, checking that the resulting indentation level is correct.
Use the parent row’s expand or collapse control to show or hide the child rows.

For example, a product launch sheet might have a parent row called Website update, with children for Draft copy, Review design, and Publish changes. A separate parent row could hold the launch communications tasks. This layout makes the plan easier to scan while keeping each task on its own row, where it can have its own owner, dates, status, and other fields.

What Hierarchy Is Good For

Hierarchy is a good choice when the relationship between rows is part of the work itself. A parent-and-child outline can represent phases and tasks, a team and its deliverables, or a recurring process and its steps. Collapsing a completed phase can make an active plan easier to navigate without deleting or filtering out its history.

Parent rows can also provide context for their children. A parent named Q3 onboarding, for instance, tells readers why a set of subtasks belongs together. This is different from grouping by a changing field such as Status: if a task’s status changes, it remains under the same parent unless someone changes the hierarchy. Hierarchy is therefore best for stable work breakdowns, not for automatically sorting records into whichever category their current cell value names.

Indentation alone does not mean the child tasks are complete, nor does it automatically create a new sheet or a separate project. Treat the outline as an organizational structure. If a parent row needs summary values, check the behavior of the particular columns and formulas in your sheet rather than assuming every value will roll up the way a project plan requires.

Grouping Rows in a Report

A row report is more suitable when the goal is to collect records from one or more sheets according to a column value. For example, a support team might create a report that gathers open requests from several department sheets and groups them by Assigned team. The report can display each team’s records together even if those rows are scattered across different source sheets.

Create a row report, choose the source sheets and columns it should use, and set any needed filters. In the report builder, use the grouping options to choose a column for grouping. You can add additional grouping levels when useful, such as grouping first by department and then by status. The report’s sort settings control the order of rows or groups, while its grouping settings control how rows are organized into sections.

Grouping a report does not move the source rows or create new copies of them. It is a presentation of records that meet the report’s criteria. If a source row’s value changes, it may appear in a different group the next time the report reflects that data. A report may also offer summary options for supported columns, so a reader can see an aggregate alongside a group. Which summaries make sense depends on the data type and the available report settings.

Reports are especially helpful for cross-sheet views: a manager can inspect items by owner or status without requiring every source sheet to use the same physical row order. Keep in mind that the report only shows the columns and records selected in its configuration. A missing row may be excluded by a filter, omitted because its source sheet was not selected, or absent from a displayed column—not necessarily lost from the sheet.

Which Method Should You Choose?

Choose hierarchy when you want to express a lasting relationship between tasks in one sheet. Choose report grouping when you want a category-based view of records, especially when the records come from multiple sheets or need to be grouped by values that can change.

Use hierarchy for a project plan with phases, milestones, and subtasks.
Use a report when a team needs all requests with the same owner or status shown together.
Use filters when you only need to hide rows that do not match a condition; filtering is not the same as creating parent-and-child rows.
Use sorting when you need records ordered by date, name, or another field but do not need labeled groups.

These tools can also be combined. A source sheet can use hierarchy to represent the project’s work breakdown, while a report presents selected tasks grouped by assignee. The report’s grouping does not replace the source sheet’s outline, and the outline does not automatically define how a report groups its results.

What Grouping Does Not Do

Smartsheet’s sheet hierarchy is not identical to Excel’s row-outline feature or to a database group-by operation. Indenting rows creates a parent-child structure; it does not automatically scan a column and gather every matching value under a generated heading. For that kind of category-based display, use a report’s grouping controls.

Likewise, collapsing a parent is not the same as deleting its children, and grouping a report does not merge records with identical values. Each record remains a separate row. If two tasks are assigned to the same person, they can appear in one report group while still keeping separate owners, dates, and statuses.

Grouping also does not guarantee that every viewer can change the underlying information. A report is based on its source sheets, and editing access depends on the user’s permissions and the relevant Smartsheet configuration. Someone who can view a grouped report may not have permission to edit its source data.

Common Problems and Practical Checks

If the Indent control does not produce the outline you expected, first check the row order. A row becomes a child of the row above it, so inserting or moving rows can change which parent-child relationship makes sense. Select the intended child rows and confirm the indentation level before collapsing the parent. Use Outdent if a row has accidentally become nested too deeply.

If a report group is missing records, check the report’s source sheets, selected columns, and filter criteria. Also verify that the column used for grouping is populated consistently. Values that look similar but differ in spelling or spacing may be treated as separate groups. A blank value can also form its own group when the report includes rows where that field is empty.

For a report that looks cluttered, reduce the number of grouping levels or adjust the sort order. Too many nested categories can make it harder to find a record than a simple sorted list would. Before changing a source sheet’s structure, consider whether the goal is just a temporary view: a report or filter may be less disruptive than reorganizing the sheet’s hierarchy.

Sharing and Maintaining a Grouped View

For a shared workflow, explain whether the hierarchy represents task ownership, project phases, or another relationship. Consistent conventions help other contributors understand where new rows belong. For example, decide whether each phase should have a parent row and whether subtasks should sit directly beneath it before a large team begins adding work.

Reports need similar care. Choose meaningful group columns, keep filters understandable, and periodically check that the selected source sheets still match the report’s purpose. If a team changes its categories or adds a new source sheet, the report may need an update to include the new data. Plan availability and user permissions can vary, so check the current Smartsheet plan and account settings if a report or editing control is unavailable.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you group rows in a Smartsheet sheet automatically by a column?
No. In a sheet, indentation creates a parent-and-child hierarchy; it does not automatically collect rows based on matching cell values. For category-based grouping, create a row report and group its records by a column.

How do you collapse grouped rows in Smartsheet?
For a hierarchy in a sheet, use the expand or collapse control beside a parent row to hide or show its children. A report’s group display is configured separately in the report’s grouping options.

Does grouping rows in a report change the source sheet?
No. Report grouping changes how qualifying rows are presented in the report. It does not move the source rows into new positions or combine them into one record.

Can I group rows from multiple Smartsheet sheets?
Yes, a row report can draw from multiple selected source sheets and group the resulting records by a chosen column, provided the report is configured to include those sheets and fields.

Can I use hierarchy and report grouping together?
Yes. You can use indented parent and child rows in a source sheet and create a report that displays selected records grouped by a field such as owner or status. Each method controls a different view of the data.

Try it: the Date Difference Calculator: days, months, years and weekdays between two dates, with the DATEDIF formulas.

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Sources: Function behaviour and menu paths: Microsoft Support documentation for Excel. Method & sources

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