Where does Smartsheet record the user name/ID of the form submitter?

Brian Curtis

Our team tried to get fancy by asking for the form-filler's User ID and try to get Smartsheet to perform an 'auto-lookup' of that ID in a separate spreadsheet (or maybe the user directory) to autofill their name, email address, department, etc. Naturally, that didn't work. So now we want to get back to basics.

But, uh... what ARE the basics? If we don't ask for a user name or ID in the form, does Smartsheet automatically record the employee's Smartsheet username or ID somewhere, along with a timestamp of when the form was submitted? There's no such information in the workspace that we can see.

Andrée Starå

Hi @Brian Curtis

If you set up the form so that the submitter has to be logged in to Smartsheet, you can use the System Columns to get the who and when and then use that to match the rest of the information as needed.

Make sense?

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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Brian Curtis

Is that the Created By option under Auto-Number/System? Either I'm guessing wrong or it only works on new entries going forward, because adding it to our existing workspace just produces a blank column....

It's really strange to me that we can't go into a row's Properties and just SEE who created it and when! You'd think Smartsheet would record that information by default, but there doesn't seem to be any way to find it.

Andrée Starå

@Brian Curtis

Yes, it's under the Auto-Number/System... and it's the Created By and Created (Date).

The Created By can't show who it was if they weren't logged in to Smartsheet.

Make sense?

Brian Curtis

Well, not really... the column shows "automation@smartsheet.com," but it's not possible to access the form (via the dashboard) without logging into Smartsheet first! So how can it not be recording their user IDs?

Andrée Starå

@Brian Curtis

There is a setting in the form settings that you have to enable. Require people to log in to Smartsheet to access this form

If it's not enabled, it will show something like web-form@smartsheet.com as the Created By.

The automation you see seems strange. Did you add the Created By and not the Modified By?

Was that why it didn't work?

Brian Curtis

No, it was Created By rather than Modified By all right... maybe the Login Required wasn't set right. (There are multiple versions of the form for different situations.) I'll adjust the settings and try again, thanks.

Andrée Starå

@Brian Curtis

Happy to help!

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GV Gnanavel D

Hello,

I am running into the same issue. We have say project team login into SmartSheet and enter their time on a daily basis.

1. When entering time, they have to pick their email so that it denotes they are entering time on their behalf. Why cannot SS identify who has logged in and making the entry and save their ID. We have included 'Created by' column, but all it stores is web-form@smartsheet.
2. Even if (1) is not possible, can we at least find a way to store the email ID (by which their were granted access) when they enter the time. if created by can only save web-form@smartsheet, what other field we can use to capture the login ID?

Appreciate the help. Thanks.

GV Gnanavel D.

Genevieve P.

Hi @GV Gnanavel D

The form will only capture their email address if you've set up the Form Security options to ask them to sign in before filling it out:

Cheers,

Genevieve