Upcoming changes to our automated notifications - live today 17th April 2020

Mel.

Hello Community!

We were having problems with this as well, and we created a work around. Sorry, @SueinSpain, I don't think it solves your specific problem, but it might give some insight on alert "from" options. I hope this helps!

Doing some research, I first found this thread, but then found another article from Smartsheet. From what I could tell, the email sender name will be the person who made the sheet changes which triggered the alert, if Smartsheet can figure it out.

SO, if it was multiple folks, or an anonymous form entry, it comes from the sheet owner. If it was one person making a change, it shows as coming from them.

The use case we are working on is making a leave request form. Since that is a Manager/HR touchy subject, when it the head honchos were getting alerts about peoples' time off requests that appeared to be coming from the sheet owner (being one of us in the peanut gallery), they weren't too happy and had a lot of questions.

Our fix... Since this use case is internal, I thought.... if Smartsheet knows who is filling out the form, will it then appear to come from them? Answer: YES!!

I had never used the require login for the form choice before, but I selected that choice in settings and had a non-sheet owner complete the form, and bingo-bango, the email alert came from them, NOT the sheet owner.

Also, a nice thing about it is that if you are already logged into Smartsheet, you don't have to log in again to use the form, it just opens up like it did before. Having never used the log in requirement, I wan't sure if it would mandate an extra step.

I really hope this ah-ha moment can help at least one of y'all out until Smartsheet gives us better email alert formatting options, which I too would LOVE.

Anitha

Hi,

I created a vacation calendar on Smartsheet and a form to submit request. Most of it are automated, testing was done and everything works as desired. The issue started to appear when it went live. Every email notification shows my name, which looks so unprofessional. I created, but expect the form/document notifications to work independent of my name. I had to change my first and last name to company's name for the immediate temporary solution. I tried unchecking my profile visibility but didn't help. Changing my profile name changes for all of my other files. I appreciate if you can work around customizing automatic responses and leave the options to user on what should be or should not be displayed.

Thank You

Nick Burrus

The "My Name from Smartsheet" is causing a lot of confusion for our clients as well. :( More and more walls go up that would have logical options for us to adjust.

We should be able to dictate "who" it is coming from and or even designate a noreply email/name such as "Your Business" not "First Last".

I submitted an enhancement request, but I don't think anyone actually looks at them

Susan Peck

@NBurrus Thank you for keeping this thread alive. Smartsheet has gone off on a lot of different initiatives, but it seems the basics of giving users options has not been a priority.

Let's keep the pressure on. SMARTSHEET, are you listening to your customers???!!!!

John Wojciechowski

I understand the challenge with automated notifications coming from a generic name and the effect that may have on user experience, but it seems there is enough customer concern, my own experience included, to support having more than one option available based on specific needs.

I'm currently working on a project where having these notifications come from the sheet owner will negatively impact the purpose of the project, and having these notifications come from a generic or customizable name would be ideal.

Hoping Smartsheet will give all of this feedback some serious consideration and roll out an enhancement to provide options and flexibility.

Bart Verstraete

Same here. We use notifications throughout the company and displaying the owners name every time there's a notification sent is ridiculous and unprofessional. Please make an option to set this.

chris.stetler83201

We would also like the option to set who notifications are sent from so it doesn't appear to be the sheet owner.

Graham Rimell

We've got the exact same Issue. We don't want a specific name on the email address as this is causing people to hastle them, despite having no involvement with the contents of the automation.

If we could have this as a toggleable option than this would be a major step forward.

It seems like a poorly thought out decision to push this change through and not even offer the option to turn it off.

L_123

Adding on to this as I have had the same issue over the last few months. The main issue is that it skips the escalation process. As the account admin and dev for a lot of my companies smartsheets, I have 40+ key users working on my team. I often develop something and hand it over to the key user to manage/finalize, and often the alerts come from me instead of my key users, so all the problems come directly to me instead of their dept manager or key user who they should ask first, whereupon it can be escalated further to me.

A good example is a safety audit we have that many users submit to several times a week. The users get notifications (from me) when they have an audit due or overdue. Our safety dept. manages the list of audit areas, who audits which areas, and how often the audits are performed. Because I developed the system, all notifications come from me, and all problems, whether someone was double scheduled, an area isn't viable for the specific safety audit, or any other issue with the audit itself come to me instead of the people who directly manage those things.

Paul Newcome

@L@123 I understand the frustration. I have written up a "template" email that I send out that instructs users to grab a folder from a "Transition" workspace and move it to their own sheets folder or workspace of their choice. This maintains the URL's but effectively changes ownership to the other user. It seems to work pretty well (for now).

Anitha

@Smartsheet Please give us an option to uncheck first and last name while sending notifications. This is causing a lot of confusion as most of the notifications are meant to be for the organization and not highlight the sheet owner name. In accommodating this drawback I had to change my first and last name to companies name and this ended up getting Smartsheet exam certificate in the company's name rather than my name when I took the exam. Can someone from Smartsheet respond if they are working on correcting this, please?

Kyle Morgan

Please, Smartsheet...

PLEASE give us the option to disable sending all notifications under the sheet owner's name!

PLEASE put it back to "Automations@Smartsheet" - This has been causing so much confusion in our organization.

Tyler Ames

I'm having the same issues I haven't found where anyone had a true solution so I submitted the following enhancement request.

Smartsheet Product Enhancement Requests

 

Category

Automation

Enhancement Request Title

Choose what shows on Send Notifications without forcing sheet owner name

Enhancement Request Description

Example : Tyler Ames via Smartsheet<automation@smartsheet>

We have a few people (Myself included) using a sheet as a help desk which we send Auto Emails when we Close a Ticket.

It would be very helpful to choose whos name is added.

Options could be

{{Assigned To}} via Smartsheet<automation@smartsheet,

{{Last modified by}} via Smartsheet<automation@smartsheet

On behalf of *Team name* via Smartsheet<automation@smartsheet

It is really confusing for our Members When another user Closes the Ticket triggering the workflow but the Email has my name on it.

I see this has been an issue since the update. Here are a Few Discussions Ive seen.

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/68339/how-to-send-notification-without-sheet-owner-name

[community.smartsheet.com]

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/68662/can-you-change-who-automatic-alerts-come-from

[community.smartsheet.com]

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/69071/how-to-remove-my-name-in-mails

[community.smartsheet.com]

I cannot Change my name or use the work arounds as I actively use the Sheet.

Jen Hurley

Warming this up - continued confusion from recipients. @Smartsheet Please allow us to set the "from" to an email address for automations.

Michael Kim

Adding onto this thread. Please add an option as the creators of the Sheets in the department are not the same people who manage the process itself.