Creating multi drop down columns using the smartsheet api - smartsheet-api

Question

Very recently a new type of column was add to smartsheet : multi drop down :
Is there any solution to create such column using the api ?
Is a new version of the api planned ?

Answer 1

As of Oct 1, you can actually create a column that supports the new multi-dropdown feature. The documentation is a little behind.
If you don't yet have a column, you'll have to Add a column first.
Once you have a columnId, you can send an Update Column request and specify "type" as "MULTI_PICKLIST".
To retrieve the correct type when you do a GET /sheets/{sheetId} or GET /{columnId}, you have to use a query parameter of ?level=3&include=objectValue.

Answer 2

It is possible to create a Dropdown (multi select) column via the API!
To briefly address the TEXT_NUMBER issue, this type is used for backwards-compatibility. If you are unaware of the ?level=2&include=objectValue suffix, the response will return a TEXT_NUMBER column type to avoid breaking any existing clients that aren't set up to handle the new column type.
In the following examples the double brace variables represent your targets:
{{environment}} is something like https://api.smartsheet.com/2.0/
{{sheetId}} is a sheet Id in the form 6264126827992742
{{columnId}} is the Id of your primary column in the form 2641268279927426
{{columnId2}} is the Id of your multi picklist column in the form 6412682799274262
To add a column with a MULTI_PICKLIST type to an existing sheet:
POST: {{environment}}/sheets/{{sheetId}}/columns/
{
"title": "I'm a new multi picklist column",
"type":"MULTI_PICKLIST",
"index": 1,
"options": ["opt1","opt2","opt3"]
}
To create a column on a brand new sheet, this example will create a sheet with a primary column, a MULTI_PICKLIST column, and then add a row with some data.
Then it will get the sheet using level 2 to avoid the backwards compatibility TEXT_NUMBER type.
To create a sheet with a MULTI_PICKLIST column:
POST: {{environment}}/sheets
{
"name":"API PL Sheet",
"columns":
[
{
"title":"My primary Column",
"primary":true,
"type":"TEXT_NUMBER"
},
{
"title":"My multi select column",
"type":"MULTI_PICKLIST",
"options":["options","in","this","form"]
}
]
}
To add a row on this sheet:
POST: {{environment}}/sheets/{{sheetId}}/rows?include=objectValue
[
{
"toTop": true,
"cells":
[
{
"columnId":{{columnId}},
"value": "1"
},
{
"columnId":{{columnId2}},
"objectValue":
{
"objectType":"MULTI_PICKLIST",
"values":["in", "form"]
}
}
]
}
]
To view the sheet with the MULTI_PICKLIST objectValue:
GET: {{environment}}/sheets/{{sheetId}}?level=2&include=objectValue
If you do not include the ?level=2&include=objectValue suffix then the JSON response will have columns that appear as though they are TEXT_NUMBER types.
For one final note, different endpoint groups require different levels. They are as follows:
GET Cell History is level 2
GET Sheets is level 2
GET Row is level 2
GET Column is level 2
POST Sort is level 2
GET Sights (dashboards) is level 3
GET reports is level 3