Best Practices on Managing Changes to Smartsheet Items

jmjpheps

Hi all,

My organization uses smartsheet to manage our projects and we're are currently running dozens of projects out of it.

We use standard templates we built for our projects that include: sheets, reports, and dashboards.

Every time a new project starts up we make copies of those templates and tailor it to the project. The goal in doing this is to streamline our project management practice with standard plans, reports, dashboard, etc.

However, every time we make updates the templates, and we do so often, we have to go through and make the same updates to all the project items that and it becomes very tedious. For example, changing a sheet's column name in our template has us going through and updating 20+ sheets and also validating that any column mappings to reports are adjusted and working correctly. If we don't address know and address all the cascading changes, we have to spend additional time troubleshooting why a report or dashboard isn't displaying as intended.

What are some best practices and recommendations for managing changes to scale like this so it can be completed more efficiently.

Thank you.

Naeem Ejaz

In Smartsheet, the "Save as Template" feature allows you to re-use your project structure (sheets, reports, dashboards) so you can create standardized, repeatable workflows. This is especially helpful when you're managing multiple similar projects and want to avoid rebuilding from scratch.

How to Use “Save as Template” in Smartsheet

🔹 For Sheets:

1. Open the sheet you want to turn into a template.
2. Go to File > Save as Template.
3. Name your template and save it to a workspace or folder.
4. This saves only the structure: columns, formatting, formulas, and dropdowns — no row data (unless you select to retain it).

📌 Templates for sheets do not include attachments, comments, or cell history.

If your organization has access to Smartsheet Control Center, this is the gold standard:

Feature	Benefit
Global Updates	Push column changes, formulas, widget updates to all projects
Blueprint Management	Update templates once and push changes at scale
Metadata + Summary Fields	Manage cross-project visibility and governance
Intake → Provisioning	New projects auto-provision from latest templates

📌 If you're not using Control Center but qualify (licensed with Advance), it’s worth the investment in time savings alone.