How to best import a Smartsheet backup with attachments

cnikkih

One of our employees accidentally deleted a lot of information and attachments from a sheet. We pulled the most recent backup and imported it to replace the missing data. What we found was that while it pulled in all of the rows, attachments are all in a separate folder with random names so it is impossible to tell what is what. The images are all screenshots from a program multiple people are testing. To make it worse... this sheet has 1000+ attachments. The sheet is 4000+ rows, some rows have multiple attachments, most have none. Is there a specific way we need to import the backup to associate those attachments to the right rows?

Genevieve P.

Hi @cnikkih

Currently attachments in a backup are collected in one folder, as you've found. There isn't an indication of the row number that was associated with the attachment (please add your vote to this related Product Idea: Export a sheet with attachments preserving the row references)

You may be able to ask Smartsheet Support for help, but it will depend on how to data was deleted - if the rows have been deleted or if there is any issue with placing them back to the rows, attachments will be restored to the sheet-level so you will have to attach them individually again.

Cheers,

Genevieve

cnikkih

That's what I was afraid of. About half of the attachments were deleted, so we have no real way of putting them back into the needed rows without opening every single one and trying to figure it out. Since nearly the all of the screenshots are of the same screen with only minimal data changed on each screen, this will be a nightmare. I will definitely vote for that product idea, because the way it functions now is essentially useless to us.