Replying to Comment via email

Cynthia FUrlong

When I send a comment using @ functionality from a Sheet, I would like reply comments to come into the Sheet. In other words, the recipient should be able to simply use "reply" via Outlook to send a reply, rather than needing to log into the Sheet to reply.

I have used SS for at least 3 years, and that was always standard functionality. However, it no longer seems to be working. I can send a Comment via email by using @ ... but the reply does not post to the sheet. (It does come into my Outlook email). I have done all the troubleshooting - verifying permission levels, signing in/out, using incognito Chrome window, etc.

I have had at least 4 calls with SS support and unfortunately gotten nowhere on this one. Most of the reps tell me that they are unsure of why this isn't working, as it is a standard existing functionality of SS. However, the latest rep insisted that this is not a feature available on SmartSheet and she proposed I come here to 'suggest it'.

SO, here it is...as a 'suggestion'. Anyone able to help? I have also worked with my IT department to ensure that they are not somehow blocking the replies...but they are not, as the replies do come into email.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Cynthia FUrlong

You are correct: if the email address that received the @mention is shared to the sheet with Commenter or higher permissions, then they should be able to reply to the @mention notification email and it will add the text of their response to the comment thread.

Here's the Help Article with details on this functionality.

If they have Viewer permissions then the email response would come back to you via email without being added to the sheet, since they don't have the correct permissions to make changes or add comments.

Is it possible that the users you were @mentioning do not have the correct permissions on the sheet, or that they were responding to a different type of Smartsheet email? (Such as an Alert?)

I would ask your testers to check if the Reply-to email address contains the domain "@reply.smartsheet.com" or not. If it does, that email should be going to the sheet. If it doesn't, this indicates the workflow identified the recipient as not having the correct permissions, so the "To" email field would show up as your actual direct email instead.

Let me know if this helped!

Cheers,

Genevieve

Cynthia FUrlong

Hello, nope. This issue has been raised to Tier 3 Escalations Engineers at SmartSheet and they are telling me that although this is standard functionality/feature in Smartsheet, it is currently NOT supported in the EU instance of Smartsheet. I've wasted a ton of time on support calls trying to get a clear answer on this. It took until Tier 3 to confirm that is is "an unsupported feature in the EU environment at this time in Smartsheet". !! I've still not gotten any explanation as to why this is -- if it is an oversight, or a regulatory issue, or...?

Of course this makes no business sense for us, and it makes the workflow much less defensible for ROI and use with Senior executives, who simply do not have the time/patience to go into a Sheet to reply.

Smartsheet is telling me that I have to submit this 'feature request' to the Product Team and then IF (and only IF), it happens to get a lot of up-votes, they will look at it and consider adding this functionality to EU.

Very frustrating. I will put it into Product Ideas, but I can almost guarantee that most folks will assume this is user error and not upvote it. Sigh.

Genevieve P.

Hey @Cynthia FUrlong

Thank you for clarifying that you're using the EU Region instance of Smartsheet! This does make a difference for certain functionalities.

For anyone else coming across this post, here's the link to the Product Idea that Cynthia posted: Comment Replies via Email in EU Smartsheet

Cheers,

Genevieve

sfernand

@Genevieve P. - when I am working in a Dynamic View and @ Comment someone they have to be added as a commenter to the underlying sheet to reply back via email? That would defeat the purpose of having a dynamic view to keep the mass out of the main sheet and making sure that they are only working on information important to them.

Genevieve P.

Hey @sfernand

@mentioning is a Smartsheet core application functionality, versus a Dynamic View functionality. You are correct that in order for them to reply to the @mention via email and have that response automatically added to the sheet, they would need at least Commenter access on the sheet since that's where the action is taking place.

Your collaborators can still use Comments in Dynamic View to chat back and forth without needing access to the underlying sheet, it's just the @mention-response-via-email that would require sheet access.

Cheers,

Genevieve

benisnotfunny

@Genevieve P.

I've just realized that users of my WorkApp are trying to use the 'Reply in Smartsheet' or 'reply to this email to post your comment' and their comments are not making it back to the sheet because they aren't shared to the sheet by design. I do recognize that this is a core application functionality, and that my team is using the Comments in Dynamic View, but the inclusion of the reply links in the email template confuses people when they first see it, and so I have to field frequent requests to the underlying sheet because they think they need access. It's a bit of a continuous education of how to use their Dynamic View in the WorkApp.

I will provide this feedback through the normal channel, but I would like to say here that there should be a way of either hiding those reply links when the @mentions are done from a Dynamic View.

mgillies

I have used this function (US) all the time, it is not functioning correctly. I get a notification in Outlook from SS tagging, but "reply in SS" does not work so I can reply in the Conversation box. Please help resolve this.

A Rose

Yep same issue here, replying to conversations with @ people - in the US stopped working.

System responds you can reply on the sheet itself and that the email didn't go through,

Subject: Your recent reply couldn't be posted to Smartsheet

"xxx your reply below couldn't be posted from email but you can still reply directly in Smartsheet."

benisnotfunny

@Genevieve P. I also sent an @mention notification to myself, the admin of the sheet, and tried to reply to it via email and I had the same failure, so this is not an issue with having at least Commenter level access to the underlying sheet.

Any news you can share on this issue? I've been asked to put a Smartsheet solution together for another team, and they mentioned that they were leaning toward Microsoft Planner because of this one functionality.