Goal:
I'm looking for a way for employees to copy/paste or upload new rows of data from Excel into Smartsheet without seeing the full sheet and ideally without needing a Smartsheet account.
Project Overview:
I'm building an expense report system where employees submit weekly expenses for review and approval. Currently, they use Excel, and reviewers manually copy/paste that data into a tracking sheet. This is time-consuming. I want to automate this process using Smartsheet.
Current Setup:
I’ve built a system where employees submit expenses via a Smartsheet form. The form logic expands to allow multiple expenses, and submissions are copied to a review sheet to separate the different expenses into different rows . This works well for reviewers, but it’s more work for employees since they can’t just paste in their Excel data.
Flow:
Form Sheet → Review Sheet
(Form logic separates expenses into individual rows)
Challenges:
- Most employees don’t have Smartsheet accounts, and we want to avoid adding users just for expense reports.
- Only reviewers should access the full sheet, as it contains all employee data.
- Employees need a way to receive a copy of or review their submissions.
- The form is great for access control with the URL, but not ideal for employee bulk data entry.
- I’m not sure if there's a way to build a copy/paste system from Excel into Smartsheet without exposing the full sheet or requiring a login.
Opportunities:
We have access to Dynamic View, which might help. If there's a way to let users input data (ideally without needing a paid account), I can build a tool around that. I’m comfortable with Smartsheet and just need some direction on what’s possible.
Next Steps:
I’d like to explore whether there’s a way for employees to copy/paste or upload their Excel data into Smartsheet securely and easily. Even partial automation would be a big improvement.
I'm pretty Smartsheet-savvy, so any thoughts or ideas would be great. I don't need a full solution, just some direction(s) that I can explore to see if I can get to where I need to be.
