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Form fields to include Comments

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Amy G
Amy G ✭✭✭✭

It would be really great if, in the manage forms section, form builders are able to insert a comments field that would populate as a comment on the row once the form is submitted.

I have searched many product ideas and did not see this, but I did find older conversations in the community stating that it would be desirable.

We have tried to move away from including "Notes" type columns within sheets so that notes and comments are all located in the comments with user and date stamps. This also makes viewing several lines on a report cleaner, and for those that want more detail, the comments can be reviewed.

We want to apply this same logic when collecting requests on a form. Most of the data regarding the request can easily be confined to a single text line, except for any additional comments. Adding these to a comments column means in the report, you either have a super wide column to be able to read more of this text, or you have several lines of wrapped text, expanding the height of the row for only one field.

Manually moving the comments from a column to the row conversation once the form submission populates on the sheet is inefficient.

Comments can be added to an update request, but it is not possible to send an update request for a form submission that has not yet been made.

35
35 votes

On Radar · Last Updated

This is a great suggestion and we can see the value of bringing Form comments into the row comments, however it's not in our immediate plans. Please keep commenting on this to explain your use-case, your feedback plays a big role in shaping our decisions for the future.

Comments

  • Ken Richards
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    I agree. I have existing sheets with notes, and being able to move them to row comments would be helpful.

    Will work on training staff on where to put notes, but helpful if they place in a note field it would add to and update row comments.

    This is especially usefull since there is now a column type to show latest comments!

  • Monster Man
    Monster Man ✭✭✭
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    Just want to add my endorsement and vote for this functionality as described.

    Short summary is that we all could use functionality to collect "progress updates" linked to a row (task). The column should display the "last update" with date and time stamp. Previous updates should be displayed as a conversation history when you hover or click into the cell.

    I believe each row should have "comment" "notes" and "update" functionality that all works the same as described above. Meaning a column type for "last comment" "last note" and "last update".

    Hope this helps. Happy do discuss if anyone.

    -Mons

  • Jay York
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    I would like to add my support behind this feature as well. Sometimes we need an employee to use the form to alert us to or add something to a existing sheet and adding notes in comments would be great so we could ALL the notes, comments, etc. in one area not 2 or 3.


    Yes, even when we do NOT want to grant access to a sheet to an employee, we may still need there insight. An example might be a safety issue, or complaint form or suggestion form.


    Jay

  • jsmaruca
    jsmaruca ✭✭
    edited 11/13/23
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    The 'Heading/Description' form element would have possibly worked perfectly, if only smartsheet made it rich text format, empowering the user to set the font, size, and other characteristics, and allowing for at least 200 characters.

    Since they did not, I am in support as well to the additional of this suggested 'Comment'/'Comments' form element.

  • StevenBlackburnMBA
    StevenBlackburnMBA ✭✭✭✭✭
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    Excellent idea.

    Certifications:

    -Smartsheet 2023 Core Product Certification

    -Smartsheet 2023 System Administrator Certification

  • Dexter Sze
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    i wish there is a way for the initial form to input there comments.


    thank you

  • Lauren Acker
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    This is a highly desirable feature for my company. We use forms to collect a lot of requests and information but we often need the user to add comments that we can reply to. Creating a "comments" column and then manually moving them over to the Conversations section means that we can't immediately see who posted them. The admin has to copy them and write "Per Employee X:" each time. This is very time consuming and inefficient.

    Since adding an attachment feature to a form that automatically populates on that line is easy, I would hope that a Conversations/Comments section would be easy as well.

  • Pauline J
    Pauline J ✭✭✭✭
    edited 12/30/23
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    I agree -- I see this was also broached in 2020 ... it would be really helpful to be able to capture the comments from an intake form and have them saved to the sheet comments. Thanks!

  • Corey D.
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    Agreed - this would be extremely helpful!