Re-importing Comments Fields after external data cleansing

Spencer Marlow

We are planning to export a large Smartsheet data set to an external database for merging and deduping with a number of other data sets. we then want to re-import the enriched dataset back into Smartsheet.

 

The challenge is that the curent Smartsheet has a large number of Comments that we don't want to lose. We can easily create a match key in the (2-tab) export file to match rows on the main tab with corresponding comments on the Comments tab, before enriching the data.

 

However, is there then a robust process to follow to import the new, enriched file back into Smartsheet, re-associating the Comments with the corresponding rows?

 

Any help very gratefully received - thanks

J. Craig Williams

Spencer,

 

Off the top of my head, I see two possiblities that I would investigate.

1. In your workflow, do not import the enriched data, but rather update the existing rows in Smartsheet. This could be a clean (all column data removed but the the rows (and thus the comments/attachments and history remain).

You'd need to capture the row ID on the way out and use that on the way in.

A third party tool like Zapier (www.zapier.com) that can update rows might be involvecd in the process.

 

2. Use the API.

Just like (1), you'd need to capture the row ID but using the Update Row(s) operation might be able to handle this.

 

Again, off the top of my head, but that's where I would start.

 

Craig