Auto-Populate Date in Column When Seperate Column Gets Filled

Question

I've checked around a few other questions asked around this, but none have really applied to what I am looking for.

Using Sharepoint 2019 Online, we have a sheet that contains 12 different columns. What we want to do, is when someone puts in a number for "PO #" column, that "Date PO Issued" field automatically fill with todays date. This way we can avoid empty fields when accounting is entering info.

I've been toying with a few different calculated values, but none seem to be working. Is calculated value the place for this to be done? Can it even be done?

This is what I came up with for adding todays date

=DATE(YEAR(Today),MONTH(Today),DAY(Today))

Then tried to add on that to depend on column 2, which is titled PO #. None of these seemed to be proper syntax

=ISNUMBER([Col2])DATE(YEAR(Today),MONTH(Today),DAY(Today))

(IF([Column 2]="PO #",TEXT(NOW(),"mm/dd/yyyy"))

I appreciate it. Fairly new to administrating sharepoint, so still learning everything.

Answer 1

You can simply do this with JavaScript on a Script Editor. Let me know if you aren't familiar with JavaScript; i can post some sample coding.

PS: Just saw that this was SharePoint online so won't work unless Script Editor has been enabled.

Answer 2

I will suggest not using calculated column as it is not intended to handle a event triggered task. A formula like =IF([PO #]<>"",NOW(),"") may display the time. However everything user edited the item the calculated column will be updated with the current time, which I assume is not the expected behavior.

For SharePoint 2019, I will assume you do not have access to Power Automate(Flow), so the standard way will be using a workflow to update the item column when the item is created or modified. Check if the "PO #" column is empty , then update the "Date PO Issued" with the current date. To do that you will need to download SharePoint designer and create a custom workflow. Here is an similar thread which you can take as reference:Create Workflow to update a column in a library and a list