How can I tell how much data a sheet is using?

Loann McGee

We have a particular sheet in which we're attaching short audio clips. However, I know that audio can eat up space rather quickly, so I'm wanting to know how much space that particular sheet is using. I've clicked on the properties, but don't see a data total within that area.

Blessings,

Loann

JamesR

As far as Ican tell there is no way of knowing.  You can see what your account is using from the Account Dialogue Plan and Billing.

 

I believe it would be a useful thing to have as a property of a sheet in the Properties box accesses by the sheet menu.  Perhaps Travis could look into this.

Loann McGee

A great idea, for sure!

With our account we now have three different departments with 5 total licenses, so I know that our account has 45G allocated while the other two have 15G each. I'm wanting to make sure that our usage of storing audio files doesn't bump into their storage over time. ;-) 

Travis

JamesR is correct, there isn’t a way to view the storage used on individual sheets but you can view storage used for your entire account through the Account Admin panel. 

 

Depending on the quality of the audio file, they probably do not take up too much space. Audio files will typically run from 128kbps - 320kbps (depending on the quality). Lets go with 320kbps which comes out to about 2.3MB per minute of audio. 45GB = 46080MB. 46080 / 2.3 = 20,034. Keep in mind, there are many factors that could affect the size of these files, but if you had 320kbps audio files, you could potentially store 20,034 minutes of audio in 45GB of storage. 

 

 

If you are reaching your 45GB limit, you can always use third party cloud storage services (Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc) to attach files. Using third party services to attach files will not count towards your storage limits in Smartsheet. 

Loann McGee

Thanks, Travis - I like that the attachment creates a link to the third party location. Right now we store our audio masters in SharePoint. Do you know if linking to SP via the attachments will be a future enhancement?

Blessings,

Loann

Loann McGee

FYI - our audio files are anywhere from 30-90mb and we have one for each weekday. Now to do the math to see how quickly that would eat up our storage...

Travis

46080 / 90 = 512. If you had one 90MB file attached each weekday, you would be fine for about 500 weekdays days (assuming you don’t have any other attachments - but it is likely you do). We do not have a direct integration with SharePoint but you can attach any link to your sheet by navigating to the attachment menu and select Attach > Link (URL). I do not have that much experience with SharePoint, but it does appear you can produce a URL for your files. That URL can then be used to attach files to your sheet. Here is an article I found which explains how to create guest links of your files: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Share-sites-or-documents-with-people-outside-your-organization-80E49744-E30F-44DB-8D51-16661B1D4232

 

 

Loann McGee

Woo-hoo - that does help us. We'd have a little over a year before we run out of space. We may keep the audio only on SharePoint and simply create a hyperlink either as an attachment, or in the Title cells of our sheet. 

One other q - I tried the Dropbox link and find that it opens in an audio player that is different than the default for our computer systems. So now I'll look for a Windows Media plug-in to solve that issue.

It's been a fun day of problem solving and research - seriously...I love the challenge!

Blessings,

Loann

Travis

That is strange your computer is opening the file using a non-default application. I found this article for setting default programs on Windows, it might help you track down the cause or set up a new default: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/change-default-programs#1TC=windows-7

Loann McGee

Interesting update - if I right click on the audio file when it opens the Dropbox link, it will then open in Windows Media Player. But whether I am in Google Chrome or Firefox, if I simply click on the link in Dropbox it opens a new browser tab with the unknown audio player. 
So I'm wondering if that is a Dropbox web feature. When we open Dropbox files on our local computers, it opens in our default media player.

Puzzling, for sure. I'll check with the owner of our Dropbox account to see if there's a setting there that we can change.

Blessings,

Loann

 

 

Loann McGee

It seems to be a Dropbox default, so I've posted on their forum page to see if that can be changed...now to see if they respond. 

Travis

Thanks for following up - keep us updated!