Automate attachments or links from Onedrive to row in sheet (or vice versa)
Context: (sorry its long!)
We are an small AEC firm with 100's of active site design projects. Each project wil have plans prepared by multiple disciplines. Each discipline may require multiple submittals to various agencies to obtain approval. To track all of this we have a submittal tracker sheet in Smartsheet for each project. However, the document managment is a little chaotic. Designers save pdf plans to a marginally organized submittal folder on our company network. Our plans coordinator process these files and upload to various agencies. They then save a copy into another slightly more organized network folder (write protected) for document management / archival. Then managers will copy the plans AGAIN into either our company file share system (a slightly upgraded FTP, or more likely one of their various personal file share systems (onedrive, dropbox, adobe, etc) so our clients can access them. (Fyi, our current ftp access requires a project name and password. This can be embedded in the link, which simplifies access, and allows clients to forward to contractors for access. Convenient, but has security concerns. Small risk since its redundant copies anyways.
We are in the process of opening our smartsheet projects to our clients for collaboration. I would like to integrate file managment as part of this so there is a single client interface for conversations, project schedule, status updates, and file access.
Solution will require plans ultimately end up in our write protected network archive folder, and in a client accessed smartsheet dashboard (either attachment or link is fine... prefer attachment to avoid permissions in other file sharing apps)
I see two main options
1. Designers attach the pdf directly to the row in submittal tracker. This sheet (via report) is in client dashboard. Collaborator uses the attached file to upload to agencies. We move our archive folder into onedrive biz. SOME automation copies the attachment to a onedrive folder structure based on project number, plan type, etc info in the row.
2. Keep doing what we are doing, except move our archive to onedrive biz. When the coordinator copies the files to the onedrive folder, SOME automation attaches new files to a sheet and updates cells based on folder it was found in.
Question (finally)
Is this feasible? What integrations am i looking for? Any other suggestions? Solutions with version control in smartsheet a bonus.
We have access to O365 and a company onedrive, bluebeam, and some staff have access to adobe creative cloud. We are on enterprise smartsheet and using control center to provision projects.
We are not using sharepoint and our IT will quit if we do... I've heard. We do not have data shuttle, or other premium apps.
Thanks!!
Tim
Best Answer
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@Tim Starkey I have two potential options you could investigate to see if they meet your needs:
- Data Shuttle: You mentioned you work for a small company and already use SCC. If it's been a while since you talked with your account rep, I suggest contacting them just to see what they can offer. I've seen them offer much more attractive pricing to small companies lately. (One company I'm working with was able to upgrade to Advance for a fraction of what they were quoted a few years ago.)
- Zapier. https://zapier.com/apps/smartsheet/integrations/excel--onedrive
www.linkedin.com/in/juliefortney-pmp-smartsheetpartner-lssblackbelt
Answers
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@Tim Starkey I have two potential options you could investigate to see if they meet your needs:
- Data Shuttle: You mentioned you work for a small company and already use SCC. If it's been a while since you talked with your account rep, I suggest contacting them just to see what they can offer. I've seen them offer much more attractive pricing to small companies lately. (One company I'm working with was able to upgrade to Advance for a fraction of what they were quoted a few years ago.)
- Zapier. https://zapier.com/apps/smartsheet/integrations/excel--onedrive
www.linkedin.com/in/juliefortney-pmp-smartsheetpartner-lssblackbelt
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Thanks @Julie Fortney
So Data Shuttle will manage transfer/attaching/linking files from shared file services (or vice versa)? I will look into it!
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@Tim Starkey You can use Data Shuttle to offload Smartsheet data to OneDrive/Sharepoint, Box, and Google Drive. Here's an article with more details: https://help.smartsheet.com/learning-track/integrations-and-add-ons/data-shuttle#:~:text=Data%20Shuttle%20can%20offload%20data,.xlsx%20or%20.csv%20format.
