The Scenario
Your team just finished a dependency mapping session. You're the tech lead and you've got a Google Sheet with 25 rows — each row has a story ID in column A and a story ID in column B, representing a blocking relationship. Story A blocks story B. Every one of those relationships needs to be created in Shortcut so engineers can see them before sprint planning starts.
The bad version:
- Open story sc-1201 in Shortcut. Click "Add Story Link." Search for sc-1305. Select "blocks." Save.
- Open sc-1202. Click "Add Story Link." Search for sc-1399. Select "blocks." Save.
- On story 14, realize you accidentally created a "relates to" instead of a "blocks" link. Delete it. Recreate it.
- Reach row 22 and notice you've been linking in the wrong direction for three rows because the column order confused you.
Twenty-five story links created by hand is the kind of work that looks small until you're halfway through it.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent that lives inside your Google Sheet. It reads the story ID pairs from each row and creates the story links in Shortcut in one operation.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:
For each row in my sheet, create a Shortcut story link where story ID in column A "blocks" story ID in column B — write "created" into column C for each successful link
What You Get
- A "blocks" story link created in Shortcut for each row
- "created" written into column C for each successful row
- Rows where either story ID was invalid or the link already existed flagged in column C with the reason
- A sidebar count of how many links were created and how many had errors
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Some rows need "relates to" links instead of "blocks"
For each row in this sheet, create a Shortcut story link with the relationship type from column C — column A is the source story, column B is the target story, column C is the relationship type ("blocks", "is blocked by", or "relates to"). Write the result into column D.
Some pairs might already have a link and shouldn't be duplicated
For each row in this sheet, check whether a story link already exists between story ID in column A and story ID in column B. If it does, write "already linked" in column C. If it doesn't, create a "blocks" link and write "created" in column C.
You also need to link in the reverse direction for some rows
For each row in this sheet where column C says "bidirectional", create both a "blocks" link from column A to column B and an "is blocked by" link from column B to column A. For rows where column C says "one-way", only create the "blocks" link from A to B. Write the result in column D.
Create links and post a comment on each blocked story
For each row in this sheet, create a "blocks" link from story ID in column A to story ID in column B. Then post the comment "This story is blocked by sc-[A value] — check with tech lead before picking up" on the story in column B. Write "done" in column D.
The time savings scales with the number of pairs — 25 rows done in one prompt instead of 25 story-opens.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open your dependency mapping sheet, then ask it to create the links. See also Bulk Update Shortcut Stories From a Google Sheet or return to the Shortcut integration overview.