Calendar App - Filters...why did you change the functionality...now...during a Pandemic?!?!?

Kyle Morgan

Smartsheet,

Before I lose my mind, here... please tell me that there is (at the very least) a way for individual users to create filters without being shared to the underlying sheet. Up until this change, our users were able to access the calendar and manually select the criteria that they wished to view via multiple, extremely long, lists of options.

I now have an entire staff of over 150 people trying to sort through a calendar...from home...during a global health crisis...and now they are unable to even create their own filters!

This latest change has, essentially rendered this Premium add-on totally worthless to me.

What on Earth possessed you to launch this change NOW?!?!?!?

Jodi Rosenberg

I have to second this. Now even as an owner of a calendar I can not filter. I own others and they are working fine for me, but one is not.

Kyle Morgan

So, I can assume by the silence here that there is no way to allow users to create their own filters without being shared to the underlying sheet.

Basically, this (paid) add-on is of little use to me now. Or, can I assume that Smartsheet will be rolling out an exciting "enhancement" in the months to come that will now allow users that are not shared to the underlying document to create their own, exciting filters...at a cost, of course.

insert boilerplate response <here>: "Perhaps I should submit a product enhancement request".

Jeffrey Brooks

Third this.

Genevieve P.

Hi Kyle,

Anyone shared to the Calendar can still create filters, even if they are not shared to the underlying sheet:

• Owners can create and share filters that will be visible to anyone with access to the calendar.
• Anyone shared to the calendar will be able to create private filters and use or copy shared filters.

(Here's the Help Center article on Filters that outlines this.)

If your users are not shared to the calendar but are instead using a published link to view the content, as the Calendar owner you can set up specific filters for them to use. Make sure that you have checked the box that allows the filter to be shared and it will be visible in the published link.

@Jodi Rosenberg If you're finding that you are unable to filter on one specific calendar from within the Calendar app, please reach out to our Support Team so they can look into this with you.

Thank you,

Genevieve

Kyle Morgan

Well, this certainly is strange. I checked with the team this morning and users are now reporting the ability to create filters where they were previously unable.All users are shared to the calendars. They are not shared via published links.

These same users also report being kicked out of their calendars at approx 4pm (PST) yesterday, rec'ing a message stating that their "session has timed-out" - I rec'd the same message while working in a calendar. We all had to log out of the Calendar App and Smartsheet proper and then log back in in order to gain access to the calendars. I, myself had to attempt the log in multiple times before the connection was re-established. None of us had never encountered this behavior before.

Once again, this is certainly strange. But, we are currently living in a strange time so I won't try to figure out what happened. But, you may want to pass this information on to your support team as I specifically stated to one of your team that I was disappointed that Smartsheet "effectively removed the ability, for users that are shared to the calendar(s) (and that are not shared to the underlying Smartsheet docs) the ability to create their own filters." I went on to state that "our users need the ability to create their own filters - without being granted access to the underlying sheet".

I received no reply or confirmation from this associate that I was misinformed or incorrect and that users CAN create their own filters. Instead, the only thing that I was offered was: "I can imagine any change in your processes and workflows on top of everything else that is happening right now being very frustrating." - Really? Do you think so? I am not going to go any deeper into that one.

The important thing is for me to not try and figure out what happened here and to just go with it.

So, Thank you, Genevieve.

Genevieve P.

Hi Kyle,

Thank you for updating us! I'm glad that the filter functionality is back up and running for all of your colleagues.

That certainly is very strange - I can't see anything logged on our Status page for what caused the timeout error, and I apologize for any disruption to your work. If it happens again, please do report it to our Support team. I will also pass your feedback along to our team, thank you.

Cheers,

Genevieve