Find & Replace All in Spreadsheets
CompletedIs there any timeline on when the Find & Replace All feature will be available in Workiva spreadsheets? Currently the only option is to find and replace, and this has resulted in our team having to manually find and replace for several thousands of items every single month instead of a simple 'Find and Replace All' like is available in excel. This feature would save our team several hours a month and I'm curious when it will be available in Workiva.
-
Official comment
Hi all! 👋🏼 Happy Tuesday!!
I am SO happy to share that find/replace all is now available!! We appreciate all of your feedback that made this possible! ❤️
Hello and welcome to the Community, Kevin!
Thanks for your interest here. I don't have a timeline as of yet for when this will be made available but I can say that our Product Team is in process of determining prioritization of such requests for Q1 2021 and beyond, and this is definitely on their mind. I should add too that this would be available across the board for all doc types in Workiva, not just Spreadsheets. Once we have a better timeline established, I'll be sure to keep you updated. In the meantime though, let me know what questions you have or if you need anything else. Thanks again and chat soon!
1
Replying to this so that this is not forgotten. I have reached the time of the quarter where we need to rollforward several files in Workiva, and we literally sit here for multiple hours clicking thousands of times to replace all. It's a ridiculously mundane task and the find and replace all feature can't come soon enough.
In other words, imagine the frustrations people would encounter if this feature was not available in Microsoft Excel. I'm biased, but this seems like something that should be at the top of the priority list.
1
I hear you, Kevin, and you are certainly not alone in wanting this feature. As we find ourselves in the waining days of the year, it's definitely become a hot request.
Your analogy is a good one. From our end, there were/are many factors and data points we used in determining and setting priorities for what features to tackle first, and when to release them. I will admit, though, there were some that we missed the mark on in determining their importance and need to users.
I can say that right now, spell check is a top priority for our Product Team and they have been working hard to roll it out. They are still on track for Q1 2021 release but have been pushing to see if they can sneak it in in 2020 yet, so fingers crossed.
As soon as this does get pushed out, I'll keep you updated, but definitely stay tuned to What's New for that pending release. And if you want to see a sneak peek of spell check, check out this episode of What's new at Workiva. As always, thanks for your feedback and give me a holler if you have any questions. Happy holidays!
0
Please add me to this list. Would save me a gazillion clicks to replace individually.
0
I got you MD! Eager to save you those clicks, for sure :)
0
And I should update this request a bit. We continue to march toward making this feature available, but development on it is not as easy as one would expect. We were not able to sneak it into 2020, as you probably noticed, but it is on our radar for this year. We do not have a timeline for when, as of yet, but as soon as that does happen we'll keep this post updated.
Thanks for your continued interest and holler if you have any questions for us. Cheers!
0
Kevin Weyant - Thanks for your feedback! I'm the Product Manager for Find/Replace.
Can you help me understand what you're replacing with find and replace during your roll-forward?
PS - Just want to say thank you for your patience with the feature. Surprisingly, Replace All will take a long time to build; it seems simple, I know! That being said, we wanted to get some functionality out to you sooner than later so you weren't left without anything.
0
Hi Kevin - there are a bunch of different areas where this comes up. It's somewhat difficult to explain, but the main area where we use find and replace is with replacing spreadsheet formulas to pull from different workbooks. Since we have over 1,000 formulas which pull from specific workbooks which need to be replaced, it can be very time consuming since replace all isn't an option.
Also, whenever we put together our quarterly analytics (which is a very long word document), there are frequent times where we need to find and replace and we can't do it in just one click.
0
I agree Kevin Weyant. Totally ridiculous. Kevin Walker as an example, let's say the formula is referencing a column $AH19:$AG50, and someone wanted to change a column reference you might search "$AH" and the replace it with "$X".
0
This last example with the columns is one that I've ran into a few times when I'm building out new heavy formula driven tabs to pull in data. So it's not a frequent thing, but does come up every so often.
0
Hi all!
Quick update for you, and sadly its not a great one. Due to the difficulty of this request, and competing priorities, "Replace All" is not planned to be worked on until later into 2022. As things progress, that timeline is subject to change. I'm definitely pulling for ya'll!
Please add your interest and comments below and I'll get them all logged and shared with our Product Team. Thanks so much for your patience and let me know what questions you have in the meantime.0
Mike Davis I'm disappointed to hear that. I can't imagine how there are so many competing priorities over a simple find/replace all.
Find and replace all is a very simple function of basic spreadsheets. Imagine working in Excel and this not being available, and then Microsoft saying that it's not a priority for them. I honestly don't understand it.
0
We need to get more users to add their name on this request... would appreciate if anyone who would sign up for this feature. Thank you!
IA Manager Template User Robert Love Jared Kastriner Jenniffer Vielman-Vasquez Michele Shea Kellie Volpicelli Michelle Redditt Nicole Lewis Paula Clayman Andrea Mosher Kelli Fischer Samir Karpe Jonathan Kohut Ines Khouni Matthew Wellek
2
Mario Parent. Please replace all soon!
0
Add me to the list
0
Please add me to the list, thank you
0
Please also add me to the list, thank you!
0
Thank you both for your interest. I've got you both added to the list and have included this in the ongoing Idea Lab.
0
A Replace All feature would be greatly beneficial, especially when new requirements call for updates to all formulas in a spreadsheet or multiple spreadsheets. It is extremely time consuming to have to click Replace hundreds of times depending on the nature of the spreadsheet. Hopefully development can start up again soon and get it rolled out.
0
Please add me to the list. I've just broken the news to my staff that she needs to replace a reference in a formula 1,900 times!
On another note, can the Workiva team think of a workaround? We are currently implementing Wdata and I'm wondering if a chain could be build to automate a particular find and replace (using my specific scenario above, have a chain automatically replace "no value" with "0" and ask it to continue to run this command until it fails/when there are no more "no values" left?)
1
Will do, Dani. Oof—I hope that convo went over ok. I feel like we owe her a stiff drink.
Thanks for your added insights. I'll see what comes up there and let you know. Thanks much and chat soon.
2
Please add me to this request.
0
I'd also like to be added to the request and kept in the loop on the find/replace all update. This will save our team hours when trying to update the source spreadsheets for the 'Summary Dashboards' spreadsheet that feeds the 'Dashboard' presentation within the FERC Form No 2/3 package.
0
Hi, I would like to also add my interest to the find/replace all feature. We've had several experiences of needing to update hundreds to thousands of instances in a document and it's painful to manually click through them all, and is taking us away from more important tasks. Thanks.
0
Thanks for sharing 😊
0
A slight update here regarding the status of Replace All functionality in Workiva. The good news is that we've moved this into the "planned" phase and our product has added it to their future roadmap. I don't have a specific timeline for ya'll as of yet, but this a step in the right direction.
We'll keep you apprised of any changes and definitely keep adding your two cents below too to stay connected. Thanks as always for your patience and feedback. Chat soon!
1
I would also like to add my interest in this. This seems like low hanging fruit, as I would expect this to require minimal effort to implement, with big benefits for many users.
0
Please add me to the list as well. I'm currently in a spreadsheet and need to replace part of a formula reference 20,000 times.
0
Comments
49 comments