Centrally managed column values? Multi-project rollup?

Bill King

I'm a SmartSheet noob investigating whether it's possible to recreate in SmartSheet what we've done in Airtable. I'm pretty sure SmartSheet can do what we need, I'm just unclear on how to adapt the flexibility of Airtable to fit SmartSheet's more typical enterprise app structure.

Questions:

1. Does SmartSheet have a concept of a project beneficiary or client? Not a person or user, but something like a dept. Or would this be handled with dropdown columns? I think the answer is 'no', which brings me to...
2. Is there a way to centrally manage dropdown column values? I get that you can update the values in a template, but those updates would only apply to a new project, not an ongoing one, right? Besides client, our use case includes tagging projects or tasks with custom attributes (e.g. data source, data type).
3. Do I have to create a custom report to rollup multiple projects in a manner similar to Project Tracking and Rollup template set? Or is there an equivalent template or can that individual project rollup be modified?
4. Similar question as above, but for creating pivot view by custom attribute, then project, then task.
5. Are there any 'feature gotchas' or upsell hoops I'll need to deal with to do any of the above? SmartSheet plan tiers seem to be tricky.

Many thanks in advance if you can point me in the right direction on any of above, as well as help me avoid painting myself into a corner, project structure-wise!

Joe Noll

It would be good to get a call with a Product Specialist to review your exact details and the Plan you are as well as the additional modules. My initial thoughts would be that what you are asking for is possible but you may need to look at DataMesh add-on as well as Control Center. These would help address some of what we feel are shortcomings with just plain Smartsheet with some of the Premium add-ons.

Bill King

Thanks, Joe, appreciate the feedback and insight. I called and left a message 2-3 days ago with the SmartSheet support number that comes with our enterprise plan. Still no word back. In your experience, is this response turnaround time pretty typical? I don't want to be the guy who keeps leaving messages . . . unless and until I have to be that guy.