Move package tracking workflow to Smartsheet

One of the clerical duties I manage is to notify people at our university campus of received packages. The process we have now is whoever is checking in a package (often a student worker) scans a QR code or otherwise opens up a Microsoft web form. The form includes crucial info about where the package came from, who it's for, who shipped it, and a picture of the parcel so the recipient can more easily identify the item received. The person completing the form also adds some of this information to a paper logbook, and writes the recipient's name somewhere on the parcel with a red marker.

The existing form feeds to a Power Automate flow which takes the package recipient's email from the form, the photo, and sends an automated email to the recipient with the photo attached. When the recipient comes to receive their package, they are meant to sign the logbook that they've taken their delivery.

We are investigating moving this workflow within Smartsheet and hoping to eliminate any steps involving physical paper. I was able to recreate the basic form, but here are the additional specs I'm having trouble with finding more info on:

How to capture a photo in the form (to be saved to the corresponding row in its Smartsheet)
Sending an automated email to the package recipient including the image captured in the form either attached to or embedded in the message
Ability for recipient to mark their parcel as received

Is this possible using Smartsheet?

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Accepted answers

James Keuning

Drag the File Upload form element onto the form design to allow uploads. If someone operates the form from a mobile device the form will have the typical sources available (Take a picture, Choose from album, Attach file)

Create an automation using the trigger When rows are added

Use the action Alert Someone; use the "Send to contacts in a cell" option to select the cell with the recipient information. (While you are building and testing you can put your name in here to make sure it works, and then switch it to the actual recipient once everything is working right.)

Use the "Message includes" to include some fields, including the field "An attachment"

You can use information in fields to build the body of the message using curly brackets.

You can create a "Received" checkbox that the user clicks. The way I do this is I create a report with a Current User filter which you will set up to show records for Current User where this checkbox is false. The email can contain a link to the report and instructions to open the report and check the box. The users will need to have a Smartsheet account to do this and they will need to be logged in. Once that method is working you can further create more automations to remind users that they have packages marked not received with instructions for them to open the report and check their box(es).

Paul Newcome

If the person delivering is using a mobile device such as phone or tablet, they can choose to take a picture while in the form using the attachments field. This picture is automatically stored as an attachment on the row that contains the form submission.

You can set up an automation to go to someone listed in a column based on the row that triggers the automation (leverage a contact type column which is where the person delivering enters the recipient's email address). If the trigger is when an attachment is made to a row (which happens when delivery person submits the form with the picture attached), the attachment will be sent with the automation.

If you make that automation an Update Request, the recipient can click a link in the email to open up a separate form where they can check a box or something to that effect indicating they have received the package.

That would take out all need for a physical paper trail, and keeps everything in Smartsheet without the need for outside or 3rd party apps.

All comments

James Keuning

Drag the File Upload form element onto the form design to allow uploads. If someone operates the form from a mobile device the form will have the typical sources available (Take a picture, Choose from album, Attach file)

Create an automation using the trigger When rows are added

Use the "Message includes" to include some fields, including the field "An attachment"

You can use information in fields to build the body of the message using curly brackets.

Paul Newcome

That would take out all need for a physical paper trail, and keeps everything in Smartsheet without the need for outside or 3rd party apps.

PhilB

Paul and James, thank you kindly for these suggestions. This has given me great insight and given me a perfect overview of how we can solve this need in our building. I'll have to work out some of the details mentioned (e.g.: receiver needing a Smartsheet login) but am confident we will come up with a solution. Thank you again!

Paul Newcome

Happy to help. 👍️

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