Is there a way to turn off the auto-open for the workspace panel?

Mary L Smith

This has just started happening in our company and is quite annoying for our folks. Is there a way to stop it from opening every time our employees open a dashboard, sheet or report? It is just extra clicks all day long they don't need to be making!

Genevieve P.

Hi @Amackay

I don't have a specific timeline for adjustments - please post any more feedback in the Private EAP Group so it can be surfaced to the relevant team!

Thanks,
Genevieve

Genevieve P.

Hi all,

The Workspace Panel has been updated and it should no longer open automatically on every instance.

Cheers,
Genevieve

SSFeatures

Hi Mary,

I noticed that the workspace panel automatically opens the first time that I open the dashboard. However, once I manually close the panel, the panel will not automatically open again for me, even if I open up new sheets/reports/dashboards, and even if I refresh the page.

Is this not the case for you? It would be annoying if I had to keep closing it down every single time.

SSFeatures

lmcc

The workspace panel automatically opens for me every time on all assets (dashboards, sheets, reports), regardless of if I have closed it in the past. This is extremely annoying and should be corrected promptly. What I used to appreciate about Smartsheet is the few number of clicks it requires. I switch between assets almost a hundred times a day.

SSFeatures

This sounds like a bug. Also, @John Littler just posted a similar topic today about the WorkApps side pane doing the same thing that you're talking about with the workspace panel.

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/131115/workapps-side-bar

Hopefully a SmartSheet engineer reads these posts and investigates.

SSFeatures

rolanda.white

I'm having the same issue and it slows down the time for opening each worksheet. Hopefully, there will be a way to choose if you want this open or not. It's annoying. A few weeks ago it worked great, without delay, but now, i'm lucky if my page opens without crashing.

Peter Hill

I am also having the same annoying issue where the panel opens every time I go to a new Smartsheet asset. Very annoying! Please let us pin it open or closed!

ARESP5

This is extremely annoying. I would rather it open my favorites the first time I open a page for the day, but otherwise, this panel opening for every page needs to be disabled. It does it on the web page client and the installed client. I can't possibly even see the benefit to this 'feature'.

Tim Starkey

Bumping this up… it was brought up in our weekly managers meeting today. And no one seemed to be pleased. Preference is for it to default closed.

mppreston

Having the same reaction each time I open any asset. Noticed it was happening when using Chrome for quite some time, but since I rarely use Chrome, I just ignored. Recently started happening on Edge within the last week or two and it's extremely frustrating especially during presentations where I open various reports.

At a minimum, hoping this can become a personal settings option if it was intentional.

ahannigan583

Agree with all above; this is very annoying and cumbersome. Default behavior should be closed!

Mary L Smith

If it is a bug, it is still an issue. I have had so many complaints from my co-workers and managers asking how we can get this taken care of. Our folks open hundreds of sheets/reports/dashboards daily. I have not heard from anyone in Smartsheets, nor seen any response from them to anyone else's questions/frustrations.

ahannigan583

I received this message from technical support yesterday:

Thank you for reaching out regarding the workspace panel auto-opening when accessing sheets, reports, or dashboards. This behavior is part of Smartsheet’s current design, and while it’s not a bug, it is more noticeable when you open a sheet from a workspace that hasn’t been used recently. Unfortunately, there’s no setting to disable this feature entirely at the moment.

We understand how this can impact your workflow, especially when you want to minimize navigation for your users. You may consider submitting an enhancement request to our product team here for future improvements.

I can't imagine why they'd think this a good idea.

Jake Gustafson

See this post to up vote the feedback.

Workspace Panel opening automatically should be optional — Smartsheet Community

EVBK

Yes, this is very annoying. There needs to be an option to change the behavior. Especially for as munch money that is spent with Smartsheets.

Kat42

Just adding my voice to the chorus. Please give us an option to disable this annoying overlay.

Genevieve P.

Hi all,
I'm repeating the message in the related Product Idea linked above:

The Workspace Panel opening each time a sheet is accessed was a feature enabled only for members of the Early Adopter's Program (EAP). This is going to be rolled back soon for this group, thank you for your feedback. For any additional comments, please post in the private EAP Group.

Please post any more feedback in the Private EAP Group so it can be surfaced to the relevant team.

Thank you!

Genevieve