What services are offered?

L. Pen

Smartsheet has been recommended to me as a cloud storage site.  I don't see that.  What services are offered, and is Smartsheet a cloud or internet storage site?

Andrée Starå

Hi,

It's not a cloud storage solution like Dropbox or similar. It's a collaborative work management platform that also can store data natively or in third-party solutions like Google drive, Dropbox, Box and more. 

Best,

Andrée Starå - Workflow Consultant @ Get Done Consulting 

L. Pen

Sorry, I don't know what store data natively means.

Thank you

Andrée Starå

No worries!

It means that with Smartsheet you can upload files to a sheet and that will store it on Smartsheets servers. You also have the option to link to other services like Google Drive and similar.

Look here: https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/518404-deleting-editing-versioning-attachments

What do you need? What is your use case?

Best,

Andrée

Anthony Caole

L. Pen. 

I literally spent about two hours today with a colleague trying to leverage Smartsheet's ability to store documents. As Andree pointed out, Smartsheet is not the first solution I would go to for an online document storage solution. Indeed, you can attach files to rows, and use sheets as "folders," but there are minimal share options and the only share URL that Smartsheet generates is a link for temporary sharing that persists for 30 days, only. I for one would like to see Smartsheet improve the attachment (file) management so that individual files uploaded to a sheet could be hyperlinked and referenced elsewhere, with additonal share options like you find with Google (share with anyone with the link, share with specific users only, share for x days, etc.).

Now that you've heard the reasons why Smartsheet is not the ideal file management solution, here's why I still use Smartsheet to store documents "natively" (upload directly into the tool for storage). Sharing a file/attachment on a Smartsheet row to an external email address is easier as the recipient gets the temporary access link and they don't have to be a subscriber or have a Smartsheet account to access the file. I have tried sharing Google Drive files linked to a row this way and invariably the end user has problems accessing the file if they weren't properly shared the file in Google Drive. The first time you screw up the sharing experience with those 3rd party apps, the collaborator immediately thinks the whole experience sucks and is less likely to collaborate in the future or the Smartsheet jokes follow. 

The second reason I use Smartsheet as an online storage solution is, for a limited number of documents, like policies, procedures, forms, etc. I like to lay them out on a sheet, and add columns that include the date last updated, any approvals or reviews if I need staff to have reviewed the file/form/policy, and a comment box for suggested revisions, etc. This has actually tamed some of the chaos that you will often find in most people's and organizations' drives, but is really only practical on a small number of documents.

Lastly, Smartsheet's internal file version management for attachments you do upload is pretty robust, as long as the file name is the same. Smartsheet makes it very easy to dump files into a row from your computer, or use the Gmail or Outlook addons to dump all the files from your email into a row on your sheet without leaving your email application. If Smartsheet detects that the file was previously already loaded on the row, it will ask you if you want to update the version. And that suits me just fine! 

Cheers and greetings from the Great currently not-so-white North. 

Anthony Caole

CEO Three Star Enterprises, LLC

Wasilla, Alaska 

A.caole@3starak.com