Need a Column Property type that is "clock" or "time of day"

Sally Mainprize

As an event management company, we have on-site event schedules that require a "start" and "end" time column. Those columns need to reflect the time of day and currently we have to create a whole drop down list of 24 hours to choose from for those columns. Am I missing it if it already exists? Or, if not, it would be great for you to add that feature.

Robin Sherwood

Hey Sally, 

Thanks for posting. You are not missing anything, we don't currently have a "Time" column but it is a feature we are very interested in. I had a couple of questions about your request. First off are you using project sheets for tracking your events? or are they task lists/blank sheets? Secondly how important is the timezone to your time of day? Is it really "8am-10am EST" or is it more "8:30 + 2 hour duration the day of the event?" 

Sam S

This is something we have been wanting to see in the app for awhile... I read on LinkedIn, Mark (Smartsheet CEO) said they are working to implement the ability to set tasks and durations in time (minutes hours, etc). He said we should expect to see it around April/May '15. We CANNOT WAIT for this! We used to use a dropdown list as you have suggested but we now are  tracking time in a couple Text/Number columns by manually typing out the time.

Neil Staite

This is a number one priority for me.

Smartsheet is a great tool for event management and production - but is desperately missing the ability to create rundowns/production schedules.  A key need for anyone in this industry

Monika Vermeulen

This is also top of my wish list. We love the Google calendar integration, but currently all events are listed as a "whole day" appointment. I use Smartsheet to track employee work shifts amongst a long list of other uses. Working out ther hourly rates has to be done manually each time. I don't want to have to use another software tool to manage shifts. It is frustrating.

We also do events scadualing. I abselutely cant wait for this feature. I requested it about 2 years ago from support.

 

Will it be able to support Google calendar hour scedualing?

Sally Mainprize

Hi Robin,

The short answer is BOTH! We use project sheets to manage our clients events but also use task/checklists we create from blank sheets. The specific application I was asking about is the more simple one, where time zone is not important. We just need to be able to choose a time for a start time column "8:30 AM" and an end time column "9:30" with no duration needed. A column property with this function would suffice.

However, we would also use in our project sheets a time with duration feature if we could! Like SamS I did see the LinkedIn announcement that it was coming - very exciting. 8:30 + duration could work here. I actually don't think time zone is important here either but I may be short-sighted.

Robin Sherwood

Thanks for the feedback everyone. If anyone were willing, I would love to see some screenshots of how you are currently setting up these use cases. That will help us as we think about new features. As far as our current plans, our first enhancements will be specific to project sheets and the ability to enter durations as hours or minutes. Here is a link to our blog post about the first release of our duration enhancements.

https://www.smartsheet.com/blog/duration-hours-and-critical-path-coming-smartsheet

 

Once we get project specific duration out the door we will begin working on a follow up release that will look at more general uses like event planning and “time” as a column property.

 

Sally Mainprize

Thanks Robin..it is exciting to see your continued dedication to make Smartsheets ever better for users!

Monika Vermeulen

I am happy to share screenshots, but not publicly as the information is confidential. If I could get an email or some other platform to share I would gladly do so.

Monika Vermeulen

I am a bit disapointed that we won't be able to display time of day with the feature update according to the blog post comments. Duration is great but I still need start time and start finish display or even the ability to select time of day the way you select the date.

Richard Rymill SBP

We are all looking forward to the improved granularity of Hours and minutes within the day but in themeantime, there might be acouple of workarounds that might help? 

If a "responsible person" needs their "to do list" that details times within an event day that must be followed, could you use a report that lists all their day's activities and the critical times in a text only column for info and a reminder to them. 

For calculating wages it is quite straight forward to use formulas that calculate that say... Sam gets $50 per hour and Sally gets $100 then multiply hours used calculated from start and finish times. The day can be divided by 8 = hrs or a more complex formula calculates minutes, so you shouldnt have to do these calculations by hand. 

Just trying to utilise what Smartsheet is good at while we wait for upgrades. 

Regards RichardR

 

Neil Staite

I too would be willing to provide an example via email.  I would not want to post an example with client information.  Pass along an email address and I would be happy to share an example of how I would like to adapt smartsheet for production schedules.

 

Loann McGee

The time feature will be a great addition for our particular needs, as well. I work with a non-profit that creates a daily broadcast that has a weekly cume of 2.5 million listeners. Our studio schedule often has multiple recordings in a day. We have a report generated to show the studio taping list but cannot get them to appear in time order for each day, as we don't run on a 24 hour timeframe, but 8-5. 

I so appreciate the responsiveness from Smartsheet to recommendations/needs/wants - you truly treat us a part of the team!

Blessings,

Loann

 

Robin Sherwood

Hi Loann,

 

Thanks for posting this! We are hoping to add an AM/PM designation. I hadn't really thought about a "time-range" column, would you be willing to use two columns, more like a start and stop time? That would allow you to sort by day/start time and also calculate a duration. 

ChristinaP

This is also something we will find very useful for our productivity. We want to be able to track specific hours spent on tasks with a clock-in clock-out feature that also totals that time - we would have multiple entries for a single task before the task is complete. 

Dean Levick

We do regular cutover activities in IT projects. Cutover planning for a day has it's similarities to event planning when very precise time slots are needed for after hours activities, and mapping overtime for IT staff. Most cutovers are over a weekend, and need fairly detailed implementation plans with highly granular time slots, so this sort of feature with duration calculation would be great. Even better if the duration time entered could automatically calculate the end time on cutover tasks.