Weigh in on Smartsheet's Next Strategic Feature

Alex Vorobiev

Thanks Brad, that's helpful.  So, it's not that you want a different format, you just want the ability to generate the same email that you get today, but on demand.  I assume you also want to be able to specify desired offset - e.g., "show me the specific cells that changed in the last XX hours", with the default being the last 24 hours.

 

I will take note of that.  I apologize if I am restating what you already know, but let me just point out that in the meantime you and your teams should be able to use "highlight changes".  It is on demand, and it does pretty much exactly what the "email me when anything changes once a day" email notification, with two differences - it's not in email format, and it does not include information about changes to attachments and comments.  I am not able to embed an image in this thread, but here is a link to a relevant screenshot from the app - https://goo.gl/photos/t2SLBSUc9D7iNyvH8.

 

Cheers

 

Brad Jones

Hey Alex,

 

You are right, we want to be able to create this list of changes on demand.  Just as you described.

We know highlight, it's just not as nice as a condensed list of changes that you get with a daily notification.

And, yes I do want to also change the format of the notifications, but that may be on another thread.  I don't remember.  What I need now is for my teams to get their notifications based on the time zone of the subscriber to the notificaitons, not the sheet owner's time zone, etc.  

 

Alex Vorobiev

Thanks, Brad.  We are on the same page.  I've got "delivery based on recipients' time zones" on our list of requested features.  To set expectations, it is unlikely that this be available this year.  Once we have more information where it fits on the roadmap, we will share it.

 

Thank you for your patience!

Brad Jones

FYI Alex,  I think I've found a workaround.  I created two users under my personal email addresses, and assigned a different time zone to each user.  I then transferred the workspace and sheet ownership to those users.  I just did it yesterday evening, so I can't tell yet, but if the notifications are based on the sheet owner's time zone, then it 'should' work.

Alex Vorobiev

@brad - clever workaround idea, unfortunately a given sheet can have only one owner, see https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/520103-changing-the-sheet-owner.

Alex Vorobiev

@brad - ughhh, the help article is wrong, thanks so much for catching that.  That's a miss on our part.  I just chatted with our Support and Help Center team, and they will be updating the docs tomorrow.

 

"once a day" notifications are sent betwen 12 midnight and 4am based on the sheet owner's timezone.  I can't be any more precise than that - the delivery time is randomized  between 12 and 4 to avoid overloading our outbound systems.

 

As I mentioned, there can be only one sheet owner, so your earlier workaround won't work.  Having said that, I hear you loud and clear that you want notifications to respect the recipient(s)'s time zone - that's on our feature request list.

 

If you are seeing that "once a day" notifications are not delivered between 12 and 4am sheet owner's timezone, please shoot an email to support@smartsheet.com with sheet ID so we can investigate.

 

Thanks!

Brett Evans

 

Gwyneth,

 

What quarter is this being targeted for?

 

Thanks,

Brett

Alex Vorobiev

@brett - hard at work, shooting for Q1.

Brad Jones

The SS help article says this about Notifications:

Once a day These notifications are compiled and sent out every day between 12 and 4 a.m. based on the recipient's time zone setting.

 

BUG - THIS IS NOT REAL SYSTEM BEHAVIOR

 

What is the REAL clock that sheets use for the daily notifications?  Is it just the clock hanging on the wall in the SS office?!?

 

 

@Alex - I used those instructions.  However, I can see that still, two days after I made the ownership changes, the alerts are still going to the offices at the exact same times - regardless of the time zone of the sheet owner, the notification recipient time zone, or any other account setting I have tried.  My people in China are getting their notifications at 5pm their time, and my team in the Netherlands get theirs at around 2pm their time.

 

 

UPDATE: SOLUTION FOUND

To change notification timings for existing sheets, you must do the following:

1. Transfer sheet ownership to a person with the right time zone in the personal settings.

2. Log in as that user

3. Delete and recreate all of the notification subscriptions for the sheets in question.

This works, I have tested it with my Russian and Chinese teams.  However, the change may affect their notifications for the next day, so you might do it on a weekend to minimize disruption.

Alex Vorobiev

Brad, sorry, can you please elaborate on what you mean by "this one"?  Are you referring to conditional notifications, which was the original subject of this thread?  To notifications based on timezones?  Or something else?  And how is it related to having users type freeform?

 

Thanks in advance!

Brad Jones

Previous post was about wrong 'next feature'.

 

UPDATED:

Ready for this one to take effect. - Conditional notifications will be nice.

Jeff Ballard

The test of Conditional Notification was in Spetember.  Can you give us an update on when this feature might be turned on?

Spencer Marlow

Seconded .... very impatient to see this one go live :-)

Alex Vorobiev

Share everyone's anxiety - we are pretty keen to start using the feature internally.

 

We are wrapping up development, but this is a brand new service and need to make sure we put it through its paces so it (1) can scale well and not tip over, and (2) would not adversely impact other parts of Smartsheet.  We anticipate a high volume of new notifications hence the extra caution.  Our current general availability release target is February, and we will keep everyone posted.

 

Really appreciate your patience!

J. Craig Williams

I would love to see the before-and-after notification count.

I can imagine my count increasing 5-10x alone.

 

Edit: By which I mean POTENTIAL notifications - if I am keeping up with tasks, the notification count into my in-box should be only slightly higher.

 

Craig