This new layout is awful, can it be made optional?

Chris72301 · 12/14/18

Why would you do this? Did you even test this with customers?

Why can't I open as a new tab from the "home" page?

Why can't I make the "home" page the default on the side bar?

Why can't I make the side bar stay open?

This functionality is not working for us as an organization. As the administrator for 8 workspaces with a combined 27 (and growing) sheets/reports this makes my life a lot harder when jumping around to make sure everything is working.

Can you make this new layout design optional?

Phoebe S · 12/14/18

I feel you. I have 50+ workspaces and hundreds of sheets, often needing half a dozen open at the same time.

I cannot do my job effectively with this new update.

TinaLampe · 12/14/18

Is there any way to allow us to revert to tabs across the top of the window? The updated interface takes up horizontal real estate, which is a commodity on a spreadsheet. It is also inefficient, because it requires two clicks to get to another sheet. Previously I could toggle between sheets in a single click.

Mike L. · 12/14/18

I can open (three line square icon) and close (arrow) my sidebar as needed. It stays open or closed until I change it. I'm using google chrome (latest version).

Personally I did not like the old tab interface I found it frustrating that new tabs always opened on the far right and disappeared the when the next tab was opened. I was constantly dragging tabs to the left to "pin"them where I could use them. I always found myself with about 30 tabs open that went across the screen then were hidden until I clicked on the drop down list. Of course I'm a relatively new user so it may be that I simply never figured out a way to efficiently use the tabs to my advantage. Anyway I only wanted to share that I can open and close the sidebar and it stays put until I change it. Hope this helps!

Robin Sherwood · 12/14/18

Mike L

You have summed up a goal of this change nicely. One of the key features of this release is the addition of "direct links" for all sheets, reports and dashboards, this means from the new navigation you can choose "open in new tab" from the "three-dot" next to the item name. This will leverage the browser tabs which are a much more efficient use of space, and they will load faster because the tab actually stays open. The old tabs were not really "open" they were just links like the recently opened items and require you to reload the sheet every time. This is slower.

We are definitely interested in how people prefer the left bar to work from a "stay open" "auto close" stand point. Our research was pretty divided and even while we were building the app our internal teams preferred different behavior. One thought is that it always collapses below a certain screen size but on bigger monitors you can choose to keep it open. There is also a question of where it opens to? Recents? Favorites? or even home?

Thanks for taking the time to reach out! Keep the feedback (positive and negative) coming, that is how we make the app better!

Cheers,

Robin

Chris72301 · 12/14/18

Hi Robin,

There is no way to open into a new tab from the "home" screen only the "recent" and maybe "favorites."

I have many different Workspaces and find that a more useful way to find my way when looking for something specific. There is no "three dots" from within the "home" area and as soon as you open a sheet from there the "home" area disappears.

benbo5 · 12/14/18

Robin, I know you can't do it yourself, but go to the IT man or woman and make it optional to switch back to old version. You said it was a divided so your upsetting half of your members who pay yearly. So make it optional.

Unknown · 12/16/18

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Brad Jones · 12/19/18

Want our old features back please.

meyerd61361 · 12/20/18

I'd like to see this changed so that you can right-click on the file name in Home/Workspace and have the option to open in a new tab instead of opening the file and then clicking to open it in a new tab. Extra clicks that shouldn't be required.

sjay75841 · 01/21/19

I notice that the internal Smartsheet response was only to the person who liked the new navigation. Internally at my company, we are all very displeased. I personally have about 8 projects, with many sheets per project. If I'm on one sheet and need to go home to find another one, you do not have the option to open multiple. You can only do that from the recents / favorites. I cannot possible put close to 100 sheets in my recents and scroll through them trying to find which one I want. I have to consistently go between projects and sheets. The new navigation is not at all efficient. The entire team is having difficulty and we complain regularly now. I used to be a huge fan of smartsheet and this new navigation makes me want to switch software.

Robin Sherwood · 01/22/19

sjay,

Can you elaborate on the statement: "... need to go home to find another one, you do not have the option to open multiple. You can only do that from the recents / favorites."

Are you referring to opening multiple browser tabs from home? If this is the case, this was changed in the January 15th release. You can now Ctrl-Click on a link in home to open items in a new browser tab, You can also right-click on the item to see a menu that will allow you to "open in new tab"

We do not allow opening multiple tabs at once (right click on a a whole folder for example) because this usually will trigger pop-up blocker software which could inhibit opening anything in a new tab.

Another tip, if you you often toggle between home an individual items and back to home in the same window, you can also use the browser back button.

Cheers,

Robin

Tec · 01/29/19

I must agree with the majority on this one. the old functionality is better by far.

I'm still unclear from this thread and the explanations from smartsheet how to open multiple sheets and flip between reports easily. I have no '3 dots' or even the option to 'open in new tab'. I guess i must be missing something but having used smartsheet for years if I can't find it intuitively then something must be wrong.

David Landau · 04/16/21