SmartSheet -- working with nulls

[VizED]

Hi folks,

I am working on a SmartSheet project where I was planning on using their Tableau connector to develop some dashboards for SmartSheet reporting.

SmartSheet is basically a spreadsheet. It is great for row-based data and can create row-based hierarchies for tasks and sub-tasks. My issue is that while the type of project I am working with has a parent:child:grandchild relationship, however it is based on columns not rows. SmartSheet allows for row hierarchies but not column-hierarchies.

What I mean is that the hierarchy of columns is (or should be): Project Section > Project Deliverable > Project Task with each of those being their own column. Basically every Task belongs to a Deliverable and every deliverable belongs to a Section. 

When I create the sheet, from a hierarchical layout perspective, I get what I want:

Section	Deliverable	Task
Acquisition
	Closing
		Task 1

However, when I connect via Alteryx or Tableau, not surprisingly, I see exactly what the sheet looked like in Smartsheet; of course with the blanks (the result of the hierarchy) rendered as nulls.

Section	Deliverable	Task
Acquisition	null	null
null	Closing	null
null	null	Task 1

 Or, this is actually what I get in Alteryx:

My question -- sorry for the preamble -- is what would be the best way to deal with the nulls?

It seems that if I was able to fill in all the empty fields with the appropriate name of the hierarchy's correct member, like the picture below, then I might be getting closer to being able to work with the data in Tableau:

Section	Deliverable	Task
Acquisition	Closing	Task 1
Acquisition	Closing	Task 1
Acquisition	Closing	Task 1

I know this isn't an Alteryx issue, but I am hoping one of your transformation wizards can help me work this out! 

Thanks!

-C

[VizED · Accepted solution]

Solved it using the Multi-row Formula tool -- worked awesome!

Here's the thread with the answer

Here's the answer (the expression for the multi-row formula tool):

IF IsNull([Field_1]) THEN [Row-1:NewField] ELSE [Field_1] ENDIF