New Comments Format

LeslieW

My team has run into HUGE problems over the past couple of days because of the latest change over from discussion to comments. We have teams in different countries communicating with each other though the discussions. We had previously used separate discussions (on a single row) to communicate approvals needed from different departments or to communicate new versions of designs, but now all of these separate discussions have been merged together into one thread, which makes it extremely difficult to diffentiate between the individual discussions that had previously been separated.

 

We have also run into problems with emailing discussions. Previously, if we emailed a discussion, the subject line of the email would show the text that is shown in the first column. Now the subject of the email only rows the row number and name of the sheet. Our rows are continuously changing and the information included in that first column was vital for us to be able to identify which emailed discussion was associated with which product.

Kim Stringer

I agree that the new format for the comments section does not provide the same funcionality as before.   I really hope they revert back to the way it was.   We are already experiencing confusion by not having the ability to have an over arching discussion followed by  comments associated with each discussion piece.   It is actually slowing our work process down now.

Alex K

We are also having issues collaborating with the change to the new 'Comments' enhancement (not really an enhancement) from the 'Discussions' format.  We too had utilized the Discussions feature to collaborate with various disciplines within our company.  Each discipline was able to locate the exact discussion forum that pertained to them, and not be overwhelmed by every other discussion.  Now all the discussions are lumped together offering a very hard to read, and less predictable interface.

  Previously, the most recently modified discussion would jump towards the top.  That was advantageous as for disciplines that were no longer involved, their discussions would fall to the bottom, and active disciplines would remain at the top.

 

  Please 'Smartsheet' let us know if there is a work-around for this latest revision to the software.  This is a change that takes us a step backward.

Rick Suydam

Agree 100% with the above.  I sent an email to support only to get an answer I didn't understand.  We are a small restoration company and use this feature to communicate within the company throughout our projects on a daily basis.  It's useless to us now.

Rob van Dijk

see also https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comments 

Beth Ipock

I can see some benefits but I am also frustrated.  Many of my projects have a column called "Comments" for me to make notes in.  Now when I send an Update Request, the user gets a form with two fields call Comments and they typically pick the second one and overwrite my comments rather than adding to the "Discussion" (previously) which is what I want them to do.  So I will be renaming my columns but I stlil don't think the "Comments" field in the form will be the obvious place for the responder to put their notes.  I'd like to be able to pick the fields in the Update Request Response form for my projects.

LeslieW

Hi Beth -

 

Have you been using both the Comments and the Discussions (now "Comments") in you Update Request form or are you trying to only include the Discussions for the other users to add their comments in? You can edit which fields you include in the Update Request form by selecting "Edit" and then de-selecting the fields that you do not wish to include, such as the field for your personal comments.

Apologies in advance if you already knew this and I misunderstood your problem.

 

Beth Ipock

Thanks, Leslie.  I had not noticed the Edit there.  I will use it!

Brad Jones

Let's raise the call.  There is a big dissatisfaction within my company about the new format, and within the SS community.  Really not happy with the new format as now new discussions/comments/whatever are no longer titled like the original discussions were.  You cannot add a title to a new "comment" within a discussion, and if you want your notifications to show the title of the row they were commented on, you must use the REPLY feature and dig around in the section.  Plus all of the comments are collapsed so that it looks like a twitter feed that you have to click on to get your details.  I'd much rather just scroll my mouse than click on "see more" for every thread over one sentence in length.

 

BOOO HISSS!

 

 

UPDATE 08/23 - After all the hotfixes, we are able to maintain our previous workflow as long as people don't use the reply functions.  We still want to be able to turn off the "See All" condensation that's happening, but at least now our comments are in order and they have the title of the primary column.

 

Thank You Smartsheet for working on this to get it to fit better.  

 

 

All, check out your notifications and conversations.  You should see that it basially works the same as before, albeit a bit less visually clear.

Darwyn Ker

Yes, not impressed with the new comments function.  Stuff all over the place depending on where each person has 'replied' to the last comment.  Needs to revert back asap