Collaborative and real-time editing

Deepak

If multiple users end up editing the same cell without realizing, the last change that was saved overwrites the other. All editors should be able to view the current cell that is being edited and should be able to lock them as they continue to edit.

Courtney S.

It would be very nice to be able to see what cell other users are in. Rather like how google sheets or Excel online sheets will put a border with a little tag on a cell that someone else has selected. Or even seeing just a general row marker that some part of the row is currently selected by another user.

huntermulberry

It is truly debilitating to not be able to work with someone in the same sheet at the same time with out it having to refresh and ruin someone else's data. Here at Penske's Talent and Development team, we are a very collaborative group and would love for this feature to be implemented ASAP.

HarryWatkins

Before all these fancy integrations and whatnot could you please enable auto save and therefore live updates. In today's hybrid working environment those features are a must for efficient workflow. Cheers.

Paul Newcome

@HarryWatkins Autosave has been an optional feature for a while now and live updates are there once the update has been saved by the updater. This idea is more geared towards visibility of other users such as being able to see when someone else is editing the same cell.

HarryWatkins

The issue with the autosave though is that it only updates after inactivity as far as I am aware. We’d like it so it’s more like a Google doc or even shared word doc so that it is just constantly updating and saving. Is there the option for this because I haven’t been able to find it.

Paul Newcome

@HarryWatkins Ah. Ok. I misunderstood your intentions. The only autosave feature is triggered by inactivity. I personally am ok with that because when a sheet is saved, any open cell is "closed" meaning you are no longer editing that cell. If I am mid-formula, that could really mess things up. Or a lot of times I am doing some testing and have a handful of random test columns scattered throughout that I can just use the "undo" button to remove. Once a sheet is saved, I can no longer use that "undo" button.

I do see your use case though and would hope that if something like that was to be implemented, they would make it optional so I can turn it off while building out more complex solutions.

Kariv

I have lost data many times when multiple people are editing a sheet at the same time. It would be great if we could see what cell other users are in and have instant updates like Google. Alternatively, if we had the ability to lock a sheet so no one else could make edits during the time period it is locked, that is a potential workaround. I find this issue occurs most often when I am going through a project plan in a team meeting. Multiple people are in the sheet and often editing the rows they are responsible for. As a Smartsheet champion, I always cringe when I have to ask people to refrain from making edits so we don't lose anything as that technology is available in other applications. Smartsheet is behind the times here. It's very frustrating to users to lose data.

samyunker

@Paul Newcome If you can't undo after saving, that should be fixed too. Why should saving also "close" a cell? These are self-inflicted wounds. In Google Sheets, none of this is a problem.

In 2024, any serious app needs to have real-time saves + version history.

Trent08

@samyunker I couldn't agree more, it is very hard to understand how Smartsheet hasn't implemented a feature like this. They should at minimum have a feature to tell which cells are currently being working in very similar to that of Google Sheets.

It is very hard to work in Smartsheet when other people are working in it as well. For example, we have a sheet that is used for time tracking and if someone else is working in that sheet at the same time as me they may completely overwrite my progress without ever realizing I was entering data into that row or vice versa. It is very frustrating to have this happen, especially when it occurs multiple times a week.

I really hope to see a feature like this implemented in the near future.