Hey Community, I’ve got great news: Our September Member Spotlight is here, and it’s @John_Foster! John is an Operational Development Project Manager at Lloyd & Whyte Group Ltd in England, and is a Community Champion.Â
Around 2018, John was doing research on project management solutions at a previous job, and they ended up transitioning from Excel to Smartsheet. When he then joined Lloyd & Whyte Group Ltd, they were considering Smartsheet, and after a trial period of using it, John was able to show that it was the best fit for their needs - and remains so.
“My favorite feature is automations,” John says. “There are so many uses throughout our business and we use automations on every solution we build - so much so that in the past few months, I managed to earn the Automagician badge!”Â
Recently, John and his colleague Steph were tasked with taking a list of client renewals and creating a system of record to ensure that all relevant processes are followed through. A massive undertaking, but they’ve now completed the conceptual stage and are in the process of building the final solution using user feedback - and of course, Smartsheet.Â
John credits the Community with his learning and growth, using the platform primarily to get help with complex formulas. However, most recently he was looking for advice on how to pre-fill a form, and found a discussion around removing special characters from a text field. He used this discussion to create a hyperlink that pre-fills fields on a form when the link is clicked, and is now working on putting this into regular practice. “This could have the potential to save re-keying data from one sheet to another when a copy or move automation won’t suffice,” he explains.
Outside of the online Community, John has been in the real Smartsheet world as well, attending local user groups and Summit London in June. After the summit, he says he returned to work with many ideas around improving existing solutions and strategies to further internal adoption.Â
“I have met, networked with, and learned from some amazing individuals. I was a bit nervous attending as I hadn’t done anything like this before with Smartsheet and didn’t know anyone else. However, I would advise anyone who wants to embrace the community to come along to one of these events.”
John is a man with goals. Professionally, he hopes to improve business reporting and has recently discovered Live Data Connector which pulls Smartsheet data into Microsoft Excel. Personally, he hopes to become more active over the next 12 months, including completing a Sprint Triathlon next April! John and his team will be raising money for two amazing hospices that support local families.
👉🏻 Donations can be submitted here and are much appreciated.
Outside of his impressive goals and charity work, John and his family have discovered a love of theme parks. “My daughter cannot understand why I seem to laugh all the way through the rides,” he says. “This makes me weird, in her words.”Â
Thank you John for all you do!Â
👉🏻 Do you know someone in the Community who should be next month's Member Spotlight? Nominate them here. (NOTE: Any Community member can nominate someone else in the Community).
