April Question of the Month - Join the conversation and receive a badge

Melissa Boehl

I would love to be able to ask AI to build me a complex formula! I am excited to see what comes next!

Christina England

While some aspects of AI are concerning to me, I think features that recommend additional actions be taken based on a pattern of usage would be helpful. For example: my team utilizes multiple sheets to monitor, record, separate, and provide historical information. Due to the nature of our business, some of these processes cannot be easily automated; however, if Smartsheet were to notice the pattern that we follow (like moving a row to another sheet or changing the status on a row with an identical identifier from another sheet), it could assist by reminding us of certain tasks that we typically do and even asking us if we would like to do that task now.

Hsantos

I want AI to facilitate my meetings :)

Zsolt

Excellent ideas!

Maybe generative AI could also improve the backlog on features that we need.

1) Document builder with PDF is great. However, it is painfully manual to map it. And then, when you copy the sheet it's gone. Maybe AI could just "record" what we do and then redo it on the next sheet (alternatively, add AI to the Python SDK and expose the PDF mapping, forms, etc. so it can write code)

2) Today, I write Python scripts to add/update column formulas and summary fields. AI could do the same without waiting someone with Python knowledge.

3) Love the form and it would be even better if AI could build those for me by prompt rather than me (no Python here :(( ) manually building the logic. Maybe also some dynamic fields it could handle. And if AI controls the form, maybe it could make the Update Request form behave the same way for users.

4) Similar to AWS cloud formation templates, AI could could build and replicate sheets, reports, WorkApps, etc. based on a template without manual intervention of remapping things or changing cross-sheet targets.

5) Finally, if AI could just simply delete a row without any automation, it would be a time savor.

I have lots more :)

dfortuna

There are a lot of great recommendations, especially the generative chat bot that can walk you through first level of support or provide step by step instructions on how to create a report, dashboard, or automation. I've only 6 months in with Smartsheet and have been building reports, dashboards, and used a lot of automations but still have a lot to learn.

Lachlan Stead

Ideal uses for AI in SmartSheet for me would be the following:

• Suggested formulas or improvements on existing.
• Suggested reports and analytics based on data held in a specific workspace and even across the organization.
• Automated data collection from other sheets, or even external sources such as documents and data stored in SharePoint, based on request through form entries – tied in with exiting automations, this could become an organization specific ‘ChatGPT’ style automated information gathering and response tool.
• Suggested dashboard layout and widgets improvement.
• Recommendations of better project timeline and resource usage.
• Data cleansing - use automatic extraction of relevant information from unstructured data across sheets and centralize in a structured sheet for use in reporting etc. 

jan aelbrecht

Hi,

I'm very interested to see what AI can do in combination with Smartsheet.

Maybe it can help the workflows, sending out notifications depended on answers or comments that are given.

Help with formulas could also be very helpfully, or work as a translator between text and building the formula.

But I'm open for new technology, it can help sometimes.

regards

Warren D

Love the product so far! Gen AI is certainly exciting and de rigueur at the moment, but (off topic) I would settle for being able to sort community ideas based on number of votes. Perhaps it's because I'm new here, but I can't see any way to search for the most popular ideas or posts in the community? Am I just missing something? Thanks!

Sing C

Hi @Warren D!

If you navigate to "Share your ideas" from the Community home page:

Then you have several options:

• Sort by Hot, Top, New.
• Filter by different statuses.
• You can receive notifications of updates to ideas by bookmarking them.

Hope that helps!

Have a great day!

Warren D

Thanks @Sing C!

I found the 'Product Ideas' page, and I can see it's possible to sort there and scroll through every page, but if you perform a search the only options are 'Relevance' or 'Newest' for sorting. Would be nice to be able to sort search results by upvotes.

It's possible of course that 'Relevance' considers this, but it's not clear.

Alison Clancy

Hey @Warren D, you can also navigate to the homepage in the right-hand column to the "Trending" link. Go here to see the most popular community convos: https://community.smartsheet.com/bestof/awesome 🔥

bsikes

I think a handful of AI/ML formula functions would be helpful.

As an example, a new formula function that would accept a text input (likely a cell reference), as well as an array of "categories". The new function would then evaluate the text string and result in the category most applicable being chosen.

Genevieve P.

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/372115#Comment_372115

Hey @Warren D

You can sort the list directly in the Product Ideas by "Top", but you're correct, if you're using Search to filter by the Product Ideas category, there's no way to identify the number of votes from the Search page.

You'll want to browse through the list from the topic directly, instead.

Michael Culley

I think Smartsheet needs to focus more on the basics instead of worrying about AI. There are so many features and suggestions that I believe take precedence over AI.

Here are some items that I would love to see more than AI:

· More control over the restrictions of users. Examples: Editors can't delete cross sheet references, Editors can only edit specific rows (dynamic view solves this but should be able to do this with normal sheets). Or dynamic View should be able to be edited like grid view. We should be able to create subclasses for access rights and be able to assign those subclasses to other users.

· Dashboards need an easier way to make it look clean. We should be able to center objects with the push of a button instead of counting squares. We should be able to adjust size using numbers instead of dragging corners.

· We need to be able to populate multiple contacts into a contacts column using a formula.

Basically, in order for someone to become a Smartsheet expert, they need to learn so many workarounds because of the many limitations. Those limitations need to be taken care of WAAAAAAY sooner than fancy AI.

Melissa Boehl

@Michael Culley Great suggestion!! I do see the need to focus on improving the core functionality of the system. Just wanted to let you know that I have a formula I use to populate multiple contacts into a single column if you need it. Happy Friday Eve!!