What is the best way to allow external non-smartsheet users to update information?

agomila

I am attempting to have an external user, who does not have a Smartsheet account, update information in a sheet. Unfortunately we can't use a form because some of the material needs to be pre-populated and there are too many lines to make that feasible. When the user tried to open the update request they were prompted to sign in to Smartsheet, but they do not have a Smartsheet account. What would be the best way to gather this information?

MichaelTCA

Hello @agomila

I believe they will need at least a free smartsheet account to enter any information into your smartsheet data.

Another option is going to have to be external. I'm guessing emails would be the easiest way to communicate.

Create an excel template for the customers to send you the data. You can have a folder directory on your computer that contains all of the submissions and use a data query in excel to consolidate the data. Set it up in a way that the data can be used by Data Shuttle (if you have it) to automatically update the sheet that can't use forms. Otherwise, you may need to manually import the data.

If you are going to manually import data, if it's feasible, create a template and import the data to the template sheet for each submission. I recommend using a separate workspace for mass amounts of the same sheet. Then use a report to monitor the data. If you have the report directed to a workspace, the data within it will automatically refresh as you add more sheets. If the sheets are located in a folder, you will have to manually re-select that folder every time you want to update the data in the report.

When you use multiple of the same sheet, it's also nice to set up summary data to pull specific values or enter functions that are kind of like functions outside of the grid but still within the sheet. Then create a summary report to monitor the data.