Update Frequency

Chris McKay

Dear Smartsheet,

Please stop the almost daily updates and concentrate on releasing functionality/fixes in a staged manner like every other company out there. I've even had days where there are 2 or 3 updates. It's best practice to provide cumulative updates and as a courtesy to your customers, it should be adopted by Smartsheet.

Point in example is the recent UX change. It seems to have spurred a number of related changes. I've just noticed that Create > Sheet has now changed to Create > Grid. While this might not be a big thing, I have training documentation/videos that refer to Sheet, not Grid. Established users will be cool with it, but exposing new users to a system that has differently named components listed in training material is downright confusing. There are many other changes that happen but go undocumented.

It is also apparent that you are only putting release notes together for major releases, which makes it nigh on impossible to track what you've changed in the system. Any chance you could document every production change? I'd love to know what has changed, even if you feel it is inconsequential.

Shaine Greenwood

Hi Chris,

We are having smaller updates to the application to make changes that we couldn't get into the major release.

I've communicated your feedback to our Product team directly and once I receive any new information from the about a commitment to document these changes in the release notes, I'll reach back out to you.

Chris McKay

Thanks Shaine,

I'm all for constant improvement and do not expect your Product Team to wait for major releases to do so, but some middle ground needs to be found. Maybe a weekly update?

Again focusing on the Sheet > Grid example, this could have waited until there were enough updates to roll into a cumulative patch.

I appreciate the good work you guys do and look forward to hearing back about the release documentation.

Kara Lumley

Hi Chris, 

Thanks for the feedback. 

You are correct - our April release has not been one of our 'normal' releases and we have had way more than usual hotfixes and changes post-release. The change from Sheet to Grid not being documented was a miss on our part and we are coming up with a plan to provide the community with better clarity on all changes. We apologize that it has caused frustration and will do better in the future. Thanks again for pointing this out.

Best,

Kara

Chris McKay

Thanks Kara,

I appreciate the feedback and the fact that you guys are at least trying to communicate with your customers. Looking forward to seeing better documentation of changes in the future.

Cheers,

Chris