SmartTips: Automate Your Records by Quarter in SmartSuite

Hello and welcome back to another episode of SmartTips! I'm Gavin Brennen, a product specialist here at SmartSuite. Today, we’re diving into a neat trick for managing your records—organizing them by quarters. We’ll start with a basic overview of how SmartSuite can seamlessly calculate the quarter from a given date and use this feature to keep your data perfectly sorted. So, let's get started with our opportunities table.

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The Basics: Setting Up Your Opportunities Table

First things first, we need to understand our data. We’re working with a generic opportunities table that includes:

Sales Opportunities: We have 35 sales opportunities.
Status: Each opportunity comes with a status.
Potential Value: A field that holds potential earnings.
Date Opened: This is the key field we'll leverage to determine quarters.

The magic here is automating the calculation of which quarter each of these opportunities belongs to based on the 'Date Opened'. With the date field, if you change a date from March 27 to July, the system should update it to Q3 2025 automatically. Thanks to SmartSuite's built-in functions, this process is straightforward.

Step-by-Step: Creating the Formula Field

The next step involves creating a formula field. This is where the fun starts:

Step 1: Initialize the Formula Field

Title Your Field: Let's call this new field "Quarter Test" for demonstration purposes.
Find the Function: Start by typing ‘quarter’ in the formula section, and you’ll notice the function pops up instantly.

Step 2: Implementing the Function

Here’s how you insert the quarter function into your field:

QUARTER([Date Opened])

This function will return a numeric value from 1 to 4, indicating the quarter in which the date falls. Pretty straightforward, right?

Step 3: Adding Concatenation for Readability

Numbers are great, but adding 'Q' along with the year will enhance the readability:

Concatenation Function: Using concat(), we’ll combine ‘Q’ with the quarter value like this :

CONCAT("Q", QUARTER([DateOpened]))

Doing this transforms the output into Q1, Q2, Q3... etc.

Step 4: Including the Year

To ensure clarity in reports, it’s useful to append the year. Let’s use SmartSuite’s year() function:

CONCAT("Q", QUARTER([Date Opened]), " ", YEAR([Date Opened]))

Now, your data will show as Q1 2025, Q2 2025, and so on, making it much easier to track and analyze.

Applying the Knowledge: Building a CRM or Project Management System

Organizing data by quarters isn't just a neat trick—it's essential for anyone building CRM systems or project management tools. Tracking performance over quarters helps in gaining insights into business trends and performance metrics.

Common Use Cases

Quarterly Reporting: Compile performance reports with ease.
Sales Pipeline Analysis: Understand the flow and stages of opportunities throughout different times of the year.
Resource Allocation: Identify peak performance periods versus quieter times for better resource management.

Conclusion: Simplifying Your Data Management with SmartSuite

This episode offered a simple yet powerful technique to manage and analyze your data by quarters seamlessly. Organizing your records with these steps not only streamlines data management but also enhances your ability to produce insightful reports effortlessly.

I hope you found this episode of SmartTips useful. If there are any questions or topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes, feel free to drop a comment down below. Until next time, keep enjoying your SmartSuite journey and watch your organizational efficiency skyrocket!

Remember, the power of SmartSuite lies in its simplicity and efficiency. As always, happy organizing, and see you next time for more SmartTips!