Is there a way to turn off the solution panel opening automatically?

Michelle Ellington

I don't like the new solution panel at all. When Smartsheet first released it, it would pop open and I could close it once and it wouldn't open again, which was great. But they made a recent change it seems and now it opens every time I click on an asset. This takes up key screen real estate and I have to close it many times a day. Plus, I give my department users processes involving one asset to open and manage and honestly, I don't necessarily want them to see the workspace contents. I've been in meetings with people and the solution panel is always open, reducing their ability to work efficiently in the sheet or report I'm providing them. Is there a way to control this feature? The Browse never auto-opened and made Smartsheet a powerful solution for me because it was only accessible for people who needed it.

ker9

I agree - the entire panel is annoying; I do not find it helpful but rather just a cumbersome excess layer.

brianschmidt

@Michelle Ellington The solution panel will not show if individuals are share to singular assets but not the workspace. So, anything that appears in their "Sheets" tab as opposed to a workspace will not show a solution panel.

I love the solution panel, as we often keep project management assets for various projects in their own workspace or folders. This allows us to easily flip between assets as needed (schedule to agenda to PO Tracker to RAID log…)

However, I could see how it's not for everyone. I don't think there's a way to shut this feature off at the moment.

Michelle Ellington

Thanks @brianschmidt, I appreciate the response. I can see the value in that type of workflow, which makes total sense. In my case, I use dashboards as the entry point for projects and process solutions. The majority of my users are unlicensed, using dashboards to pull information, add information using forms, and access rollup reports behind a widget or shortcut. Very seldom is the source sheet accessed and only then by solution developers. In working this way, I've built buy-in from leadership to adopt Smartsheet as a user-friendly work management solution. I have a PM dashboard per project where my PMs quickly access the plans and logs you mentioned, but they are all licensed users. When the solution panel pops open for my unlicensed users, it's too much information and minimizes the user experience of a simple, interactive dashboard. I really wish Smartsheet would provide the ability to turn this off. It's disruptive, and not in a good way. :-/

brianschmidt

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/441196#Comment_441196

Mmm, I can see that. With them being unlicensed as well, they may not already be coming with navigational knowledge or buy-in to the systems as it is.

PSExcellence

I personally hate the solution panel. It's great in theory, not so much in execution. Why? Because you can't do much in there as far as saving copies of assets, and once it opens you lose the full hierarchy of where you were in the system. So then if you need to go up a level from the folder your asset is in, you have to click the "Browse" folder which takes you all the way out of everything and you have to start all over agin. it is such a WEIRD, frustrating, and confusing experience.