PIVOT App

jaclynlorden

I have purchased the Pivot App.

I can get the pivot created, everything works.

I create the sheet with the summary Pivot.

BUT - when updates are made to the sheet that created the pivot - it is not reflected on the sheet that I added the pivot to.  It is like they are no longer connected and active once the pivot data is on the sheet.

HELP!

 

Chris McKay

Hi Jaclyn,

Don't panic :-)

Unless you specify an update frequency, the Pivot app will only pull the initial data from your source sheet.

If the data is not "up-to-the-minute mission critical", then you can select a 1 or 12 hourly update.

I'm not surprised that you were unsure of what was happening. I've been using Smartsheet for about 10 months now and the documentation is criminally poor for all the paid applications (e.g. Pivot, Control Center etc.). I've been asking and asking since day one and despite promises that I'd see documentation soon, it has never eventuated.

Kind regards,

Chris McKay

/ rant on /

Smartsheet,

Jaclyn's experience is a perfect example of why you should be thoroughly ashamed of this aspect of your product offering. Pivot and Control Center are not intuitive and documentation is expected when you're paying premium price. The contextual help is useless too. If I click on the ? in the image below, I get "Scheduled execution frequency". Considering that it's already sitting under a section titled Execution Frequency, that's entirely obvious and completely redundant.

In anybody's world, it would be expected that additional information would be provided to understand why we should be choosing a particular setting. Does an hourly or immediate update place additional stress on the solution?

/rant off /

Gwyneth C

Hello Jaclyn,

You can set frequency for updating the pivot table in "Step 2: Assign Columns" of the Pivot app or you can update the resulting sheet at any time.

More detailed steps are available in the "Preview and Build the Pivot Table" section of the following, recently published, article:

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2476736-get-started-pivot

Hope this helps!

Gwyneth

 

Jennifer Greenough

Agree regarding documentation for the premium applications. We have over 100 pivots and data meshes running to support aspects of our PM system and there has been some trial and error in troubleshooting issues. Smartsheet support has been helpful in resolving questions and I would encourage everyone to ping Support with questions as this might help push the need for better documentation.

We also use Status View, and have found the documentation incredibly thin. 

It could be useful/helpful to have user group conversations on how people are using these applications, since I imagine we are all figuring out various use cases and solving problems along the way. We have other applications that leverage User groups but I haven't seen much with Smartsheet other than the Engage Conference.

haznedarj

Hi Gwyneth, Perhaps a local issue as I have yet to find out from support.  But setting it to immediate update - Does Not update the data immediately.  Is this the norm?  My update vary from 15 min to 1 hr at times.