SmartSheet - Pilot Session 2

Pilot Notes - Session 2  - March 31, 2020

Demo with Karen LoParco

Background: Karen from Law School has been using for less than a year starting last Fall. The setup is the hard part and there was a steep learning curve. Most important piece was thinking through what you want to do.  Then you can move to setting up the automation and reminders for things you want to track.

 

How did you get started using SmartSheet?

• Watched video w/ step by step on how to create a smartsheet.
• Used solution center to look at templates.
• Started with event and budget template then modified it to fit their needs.
• Lessons Learned
  Super Helpful: Watched the video “Become a Workflow Design Expert” on youtube. 1hour
  https://youtube.com/watch?v=JZtfVxvuzHg

 

Hierarchy of events is useful.

• You can have multiple levels to roll-up tasks and hide previous events.
• Started with “Event Plan and Budget” template from SmartSheet template library.

 

Can you talk about how you share files to non-SmartSheet users?

• There are ways to incorporate other widgets like Slack.
• If I have a document that is in box, you can link SmartSheet to box. The person would also need access in box.
• Typically she attaches the file into SmartSheet so that users don’t have to go to another system to reach the document.
• Non-licensed users can see files that are attached to a row you share out to them.
• You customized which columns they can see from the row you are sharing.
• Sample email was sent to Tami.
• You can also share the RSVP sheet for people who need to see who is coming.

 

Do you use Dashboards?

• Yes, we use it to share information about speaker series publically.
• For each speaker series, we create a workspace for the speaker series. They can check the links real-time to see updates.
• "Marketing Calendar", a calendar template, is a great tool to show all the events that are going on for a speaker series.

 

Is there a way we could collect Faculty availability for prospective students?

• Consider creating a form that will collect information from the faculty.
• Would need to think carefully about how to setup the form and what to collect.
• Then you could filter the sheet based on the faculty or students who are visiting.
• It might be possible but Law has not doing anything similar.
• Would be an opportunity to talk to pro support.

 

Can you track budget down from the overall series down to individual events?

• You can have different fields that represent different kinds of spend. (e.g. food, lodging hosted meal, on-site transportation, parking/mileage, flights) so you can use a calculation to add up the different cost breakdowns across the series.  You can subtract that from the starting overall budget to see the budget remaining.
• Yes. The calculations will tie together all the events similar to how you would do in Excel.
• Review demo at ~50minutes for details.

 

SmartSheet Tips

• You can lock down historical events.
• You can add different methods of contact information to a contact record. Be consistent on how you add people to assign people. For example, use email address.
• Recommend starting from templates available so the calculations and everything are already setup. Then modify from there.
• Watch the SmartSheet video tutorials to learn how to do different things.