How Do You Document a Log of Notifications of Sheet Changes

GMichal

One complaint that I am getting back from shared users of a sheet is that many times they don't know when something has changed. I can certainly make this manual task outside of the Smartsheet but I'd really like it to be captured in the sheet.

For instance, I could use "File --> Email Shared Users" as the method to create the message and easily send to all users but the history of these notifications does not appear to be retained in the sheet anywhere.

Likewise, I could use a single row and send out the sheet update messages from that row which would keep a history but tagging all of the sheet users would be a challenge not to mention that there is no way to anchor (freeze) that row right under the column headings so that the users could always check the comments in that row to see what changes have occurred and when.

Is there any way to easily document the changes that I decide to document (not View Activity Log) for the user group to keep them informed of updates, changes, improvements, etc.?

Julie Fortney

Hi @GMichal

You're not alone in wanting a history of the notifications that have been sent from a sheet. Unfortunately that only gets recorded when you send an Update Request for a row.

Here are a few ideas that might help:

If you want users to be able to quickly spot changes, you could use the highlight changes feature:

You could also create an automation to alert users of changes:

And while it's not the most efficient way to view changes, you can right-click on a cell to view its history.