Where to start? What is the best template set or way to conduct this process from Smartsheet?

jaschneider

Hello - Can anyone provide me with the best template set or path for the following annual process that I conduct.

1. I email an excel spreadsheet to each department (30ish) with their prior years product list which includes: part #, description, vendor names, qty per kit, kits needed per semester, and class codes to apply cost, and a calculated cost kit cost per student with a markup.

2. They update item qtys, add/remove items required, enter kit qty required and email it back to me.

3. I then gather pricing from multiple vendors and update the spreadsheet with the new information and email them if there are questions from the vendor about various items.

4. Once completed, I save the spreadsheet as a pdf, and send it to them via adobe sign.

Any insight you can provide would be extremely helpful. Thank you

Andrée Starå

Hi @jaschneider

I hope you're well and safe!

Can you share some screenshots? (Delete/replace any confidential/sensitive information before sharing) That would make it easier to help.

I hope that helps!

Have a fantastic week & Happy New Year!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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jaschneider

Here are the screen shots!

Request #1 sent to requester to review prior year information. Requested to update kit qtys, parts - all info in yellow and email back to me for quoting and final kit information prep.

Request #2 - After receipt of their corrected information, i gather new quotes and enter the info (green info).to the spreadsheet, make the calculations for costs and send back to the requester for final review and approval. If approved, the document then goes to the supervisor, then manager, then to purchasing for the final ordering.

I hope this helps!

jaschneider

Hello @Andrée Starå

I forgot to tag you in my response above :) Sorry~

James Keuning

We need to see the structure of the current source data. Assuming you have the data in a normalized table, you can probably do something that will use CURRENT USER to show a user their blanks, and also include the numbers from the previous period.

But I can tell you that there will be a problem with Course Numbers. To keep that normalized you are going to need to create a one to many table, and Smartsheet isn't great at that.

How do they fill out the information. Are those part numbers and descriptions in a database, are those dropdown values?

jaschneider

@James Keuning

There are no data bases, this is all hand created individual spreadsheets~

Thanks for your feedback.