how to automatically lock a line

Guilherme Ribeiro

Hi all, 

As you can see on the print below

line 559 goes from "empty" to "Bruna Regina" and about 30 minutes later, same line goes from "Bruna" to "Fabio"

at the first action my employee Jessica used a empty line (that´s correct) 30 minutes later, my second employee Evilyn said the line was empty to her too. (she said she did refreshed the sheet, before to use it). But the Smartsheet also sabe/refresh the page each 15 minutes, right? 

So Evelyn replaced the 559 line information unwittingly

Is  there any way to automatically lock a line after it gets populated?  Or is there any way to automatically lock a line after a cell gets populated

Thanks in advanced 

Andrée Starå

Hi Guilherme,

You could use the Alerts & Actions > Lock a Row function.

Would that work?

Have a fantastic week & Happy Holidays!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant @ Get Done Consulting

Mike Wilday

Hi there, 

Have you considered having your employees use a form to populate the sheet rather than entering information directly into new lines? Using a form would help keep rows from being overwritten and allow easy data input by your employees. Form submissions are timed events and wouldn't be "input" on the sheet until the user hits submit. And if two form submissions came in at the exact same time, (an unlikely event), then Smartsheet would make a new line for each row and not overwrite them. 

Guilherme Ribeiro

That easy!!  

 

thanks!

Guilherme Ribeiro

That would be great. But could I set some rules on main sheet which tells me (on my form) when I have 2 inpputs at the same time/day? 

I using as an agenda, so I need to have no more than 4 appointment per day. Can I lock that on my form? 

Andrée Starå

Happy to help!

Best,

Andrée

Andrée Starå

You could have a Dashboard to show the sheet/calendar on one side and then the form on the other to make it easy to see what's available.

Would that work?

Best,

Andrée

Guilherme Ribeiro

yeah it is, I will think about that. But for now the blockingline thru the rules will be easier. 

 

Thanks 

Andrée Starå

Ok.

I'm always happy to help!

Best,

Andrée

Mike Wilday

The problem with the lock a row function is going to be that if two people are working on the same sheet, and two people are entering data on a row at the same time... then the row won't be locked until someone saves the sheet. And then the other person who is entering data will get warned about refreshing the sheet, but they won't be able to save their data cause they were both typing on the same row. I foresee a mess there. I like Andree's idea of using a form and a report on the same dashboard. 

Guilherme Ribeiro

Good Point. 

Actually I have a sheet as a calendar and the only cell available to be fill is customer name. I was facing some issues on two people adding diferent names into the same line, most of the time because they forgot to save/refresh the sheet, before to look an available date, however now with the line locking rules start to avoid that. Hope I can keep that for a while 

Mike Wilday

Awesome. I hope that works well for you.