Working Offline

Peter C

Hi There,

Fairly new Smartsheet user here.

I've read back few a few pages of questions and done a search, but couldn't find anything on my problem.

 

Does anyone have a solution for working offline on their sheets?

 

We are migrating over to Smartsheet for our project management and I need to compile new sheets for 5 major projects.

I have a lot of travel coming up and want to keep working on my sheets while I'm flying between sites.

 

We currently use OneNote for a lot of our collaboration work and we always work offline while on flights etc. Then OneNote just syncs our work as soon as we have a web connection again.

 

I can't see this type of function with Smartsheet.

 

I'm not too keen on exporting all of my sheets to excel and working in excel while offline, then uploading back to Smartsheet when I can connect again.

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Peter.

Travis

Hi Peter! The best way to work offline is to export your sheets to Excel. You don’t need to import the Excel file back into Smartsheet, you could copy and paste only the changes from your Excel file to Smartsheet.

Peter C

Thanks Travis.

 

I thought that would be the case. Unfortunately that gives me limited functionality when traveling and will still have lots of formatting work to do when back on line. 

 

I've noticed you have a phone app developer site. Is there any way that we can make a custom app that will let us work offline?

 

Thanks,

Peter. 

Travis

We do have an API that you can utilize to build custom solutions. Building an entire offline interface might be a little difficult though. Here is a link to our developers page for more information on our API: http://www.smartsheet.com/developers

 

If you have specific API questions, I would 

recommend reaching out to api@smartsheet.com

Johnny Johnsen

Hello.

 

I have started to use Smartsheet more and more lately, but this is really big minus for me with smartsheet.

When can we expect that Smartsheet have a good solution for this. Like Evernote and OneNote?

 

Johnsen

Travis

Johnny, there are no immediate plans to allow for offline access but I will pass your feedback along to our product team for consideration in future development. 

Julian Ford

I have the same problem working offline.  My problem is ai sometimes go into remote areas where internet connection is too slow.

 

Are there work around solutions that anyone has found. i.e. tips for how to download to spreadsheet and then upload back again in a simple step?

Travis

Hi Julian, check out my response from above which explains how users will typically work offline:

 

The best way to work offline is to export your sheets to Excel. You don’t need to import the Excel file back into Smartsheet, you could copy and paste only the changes from your Excel file to Smartsheet.

Randy

I just recently found Smartsheet and I already see it becoming indespensible to my work as a traveling consultant. I often have to share my project plans with others and having an online app where everyone is looking at the same thing is big.  No more multiple outdated copies running around.  And the spreadsheet-style makes it simple to use and for others to follow.  Gold star to the person whose idea this was and the development team who made it happen.

 

The biggest drawback, however, is it's lack of offline capabilities.  I am often at secure sites where Internet access is restricted, or even outright blocked. Downloading to Excel and then having to copy/paste a week's worth of changes is something I'd like to work toward NOT having to do.  What more can I/we (the community) do to show your development team (and probably more importantly your marketing team--I know how this works) the importance of such a feature?  What kind of campaign would be useful to move this idea from the list of 100s of requests that the decisions makers might not even see, to a top 25 list that will actual see some serious consideration and brainstorming?

Dan Arnott

This product needs offline access as a priority

Preston

I'll add my vote here for a better solution to work offline. I need to be able to update my data in real time. Thank you.

Travis

Randy, Dan, and Preston I have added your votes for the ability to work offline! 

mfairest78

I agree, working offline with full useability should be a priority. Exporting to Excel limits most of the capabilities that I use Smartsheet for in the first place.

Tim McCarthy

I wonder if a feature similar to box sync would work?!

Brad Jones

Big +1 vote to offline functionality.  This is an important feature.

Travis

Thanks everyone! Votes added