New Interface & Charts Improvements

Marc Hauge

It would be nice if the user could define what row the column formula would start so that top rows could be used for other information / calculations.

laurie.stack44711

I agree with Craig and Chris.  I haven't seen any benefit in the change in the interface. 

• I have less screen space... especially on my laptop (and I travel a lot). 
• It has slowed me down significantly trying to navigate to the right spot in the toolbar.  and all icons are "equal" - they've lost their positional relevance 
• The most important items that used to stand out (like the filter box) no longer do so they get lost and people don't notice when a filter is on that shouldn't be. 
• I have have a harder time explaining where to find icons to new users during training...
• and it makes Smartsheet look just like another desktop tool rather than the very unique work management platform that I've positioned it to be.

I too wonder where the research came from to support these changes.

Laurie

Brad Jones

Kara,

 

Thanks so much for the detailed and thorough response.  It's very nice to get some info from the source 

Two follow up questions regarding removal of rows:

1. Does "we're reviewing it" mean that it is not on the roadmap yet?

2.  Can we just get a popup warning before the row deletion is allowed?  (already done for 'Unlock Row', easiest quick win, and would make it work more like other software platforms out there)

Thanks in advance,

Brad

Richard Rymill SBP

Well done to Kara for standing up to be counted! and the detailed answers given. 

Much appreciated. 

Richard Rymill 

 

michaelcarver44851

I hate the change. I want the toolbar back on the left.

Kara Lumley

Hi Brad - great idea about the notification, thank you. I will try to make that happen.

"We're reviewing it" means - in this case - that we are still doing UX and user research to make sure that more granular permissions do not become an overly complex permissions matrix.

Chris McKay

Hi Kara,

Thanks for the update. It's nice to know you guys are listening.

Re: Calculate time diff formula, could you please provide some additional detail about this? I've been hacking and slashing columns and formulas to get time values, with varying success. If there is a way to handle this natively, I'd love access. I've spoken to your product team about the issues with system times in Smartsheet and have not been able to get any traction. I've offered suggestions/solutions, tried to understand what the issues, have heard all the reasons why locales are difficult and need some planning to work out the best approach. Ultimately we're 2+ years down the track since it was raised on this board and it's all amounted to naught. For me, it's the single biggest flaw in the system. A PPM tool (and let's face it, the existence of SCC and the Smartsheet marketing message means it can be considered a PPM tool) that cannot accurately and reliably deal with time is severely hamstrung.

Re: Cell link limits, what happens if the telemetry does identify risks? Is there a plan B? Realistically, we're probably less than 12 months away from exceeding the hard limit and based on responses on here, Smartsheet have clients that are closer. Had we known about the limits when evaluating SCC, it's more than likely the platform would not have been selected. I live and die by the recommendations I make to my clients and any failure to maintain a working PPM will reflect on me. I'm still disappointed that 2 weeks later, the support articles make no mention of the cross-sheet references.

Re: Freeze rows, wouldn't it be better to simply allow us to freeze rows? That would allow your users to decide what they want to use the functionality for. It may not be column tooltips, it may be headings and sub-headings or a number of other options.

Re: SCC documentation, thank you sincerely for the update. I look forward to seeing the documentation. But honestly, I still feel the application is not up to scratch. There are bugs galore and the response to an email I sent to your Product Team advising that the solution was not ready for commercial release (it was still sporting a Beta logo at that time), was to simply remove the Beta logo and provide a one page help guide. Since then (late 2017), the only update to SCC has been Global Updates, which while handy, did not fix the existing bugs I have been highlighting since July 2017. Metadata fields still move around each time you enter the Builder app, fields still fail to update unless you flick back and forth between projects and there is still no way to set a default message each time a project is provisioned. A feel a little aggrieved that I'm having to implement band aid fixes while waiting for a fully functional product. Especially when I see releases for Smartsheet that are frankly unnecessary/unwarranted and seem to have zero buy-in from your users.

Thanks once again for taking the time to write such a detailed update . Despite the above, Smartsheet is still a great product and I'm excited to read about the enhancements coming our way.

Kind regards,

Chris McKay

J. Craig Williams

A month plus later and I am still finding new reasons to dislike the updated GUI.

As far as I can tell, I lost efficiency even after retraining my muscle memory.

Craig

TrumanB

Hello everyone,

I don't know if this has specifically been addressed, but is Smartsheet planning to allow customization of the top horizontal menu?

The old layout allowed one click access to either grid view or card view. The new layout makes you click twice to change the view. It's not a huge problem, to be sure, but it makes what was previously easily accessible less so.

Adding a keyboard shortcut to switch views would work as well.

TAdams

This is not an improvement by any stretch of the imagination.

 Features have been hidden and or removed. The navigation or lack of it, is back to 1995 web browsing standards. No tabs, I now have to rely on my web browser to open additional sheets that I have open every day all day. Instead of all within a single page that has tabs all while showing less content and hiding more features and content that I need easy access to. I am on a desktop, not a tablet and not a phone, why do I have a stripped down interface? Why is everything buried? Why do I not have keyboard shortcuts to navigate if you are going to hide things?

 Stop changing the interface, and improve features/add features - Things like allowing me customize my backups and how many versions to keep, how often to keep them, etc., etc... Something I have requested and heard nothing about, along with several other requests that have yielded nothing. There has been several UI changes and it is apparent the road map has obviously changed each time. Smartsheets has missed the mark by a long ways this time.

 All of my SOP's, Videos as well as documentation now must be changed... again. 

I can assure you one thing; change happens. When changes like this happen, it raises the priority of locating a Smartsheet alternative.

Regards,

Tom

MrM1ke

Is there an option to remove the pop-up mouse hover tool tips on the top menu bar ribbon? It is getting in the way of the feature buttons and has become very annoying. Thank you!