Can Smartsheet send a notification to a TEAMS channel that is private?

Robert Schaad

When creating an automated workflow- i want to send a notification to a TEAMS channel. It seems that it will only work if the TEAMS channel is set to "Standard". I am currently trying to get a notification sent to a channel that is "private".

Ben Goldblatt

Hi @Robert Schaad,

I just ran a test in my Smartsheet and Microsoft accounts and it seems as though it's possible to select a Private team and Private channel within an Automation workflow, but I'm also finding that I'm only able to actually receive notifications in Teams if the channel is set to standard. I'm not seeing any specific information about standard vs private channels when integrating with Smartsheet so you may want to check with the Support Team to see if this is expected behavior. Click here to create a Support ticket.

If it's determined to be expected behavior, I highly recommend Submitting a Product Enhancement Request to see about getting private Teams channel support considered as a possibility for future development.

I hope this helps!

Ben

Dan Smock

Here's hoping this isn't expected behavior since it defeats 100% of the reason why we went with private channels and not a whole bunch of teams that would just confuse us. Opened a Support ticket, as suggested.

Chad Brack

Hi @Dan Smock - did you find anything further on this one? I just bumped headlong into it after configuring several automations, only to not have posts arrive in the private MS Teams channel.

Thank you

Brett Wyrick

Hey @Robert Schaad, @Dan Smock, @Chad Brack -

I know this is an old post, but since there's still no solution to it I figured I'd let you know that I did figure out a way to send Smartsheet updates to Teams with Private Channels via Microsoft's Power Automate platform. It actually works for both "Standard" and "Private" Channels, and is easily viewable on Desktop and Mobile (and could be customized to look basically however you'd like).

Basically, it's a line-by-line update of rows that get updated based on whatever column you want to trigger. I call it the "Project Newsfeed". Tweet-sized automatic updates on each project I run. It involves setting up a couple of webhooks and processing the info via Power Automate. Many organizations have Power Automate available, but do not utilize it.

I just started a new project, so a bunch of updates came in for my "Assignee" column. Here's what it looks like:

Here's an example of an update for a "Status Column":

And an example of an update when an item is late:

Note that each item has a link to the exact row that is being updated (the text in purple is Teams' default color for hyperlinks).

The benefit of doing this my way is that every single change gets added to this Newsfeed. No more notifications from Smartsheet that are batched, saying something simple like "4 rows were changed". You'll know exactly what changed.

I also have this set up for other features within the M365 stack. So it also can do things like give updates when files are added to the Teams "Files" tab, emails related to the project are received/sent and when calendar events are about to begin that are related to the Project. Those look like this:

Ideally, a "service account" would be great for this - think of it as a "bot" that does work and automations for you. Something like "NewsfeedBot@yourcompany.com" would ideally be created then added to each Private Channel - but as you can see above, it also works with a user account as well.

This can be triggered to be set up every time a new Sheet is created (with parameters, obviously) - it has greatly helped the company I work for set up new projects quickly with very little manual work.

Let me know if this would be of any interest to you.

Now that I've gotten you to the end, I'll drop the hammer:

I am selling this as a per-hour build, based upon your org's requirements. It'll include both the building of the automations and training on how to edit and maintain the automations. Open for a demo as early as this week if you're interested. I came from a background of little to no coding experience and this can be taught to anyone who's at least a little tech savvy. Most everything is drag-and-drop "no-code" automations. My email address is in the signature below.