Feature Request - Sheet archiving offline- or Unlimited sheet limit.

Stephen Smith

Since I use Smartsheet for everything at work and home, the number of sheets pile up.   One can get up to the sheet limit fairly quickly.  I use Smartsheets for job tracking and article outlines so the number of sheets piles up pretty quickly over time.  Some of the sheets I no longer use on a regular basis but want to keep the data, so I have to transfer the data to either Google Sheets or download if it were available, transfer them to a Smartsheet archive file, so they are out of my account, but available for upload. 

I think the people at Smartsheet don't realize how fast people can reach their sheet limit.  I am just one person and I use over 250 sheets.  

Examples of sheets that cause your sheet limit to get used up fast.

1.  Article outlines

2. Job tracking 

3. Bid tracking

 

Is it fair for the folks at Smartsheet to get us hooked on a vastly superior tool, then expect us to have to revert to Google Sheets and other inferior products, just because we love their product?  After all mass storage is pretty cheap these days, why not provide an option for unlimited sheets or maybe a 12 step program.

 

Adam Overton

Stephen, I'm so glad you find so much value out of Smartsheet! I think the 250 sheet limit is for Team-5 accounts. Business-5 accounts get 500, and Enterprise is unlimited.

J. Craig Williams

Stephen,

 

To resolve this in my own account, I archive in Smartsheet when I no longer need the sheet by Save as Template.

This keeps the data and the formulas, something that exporting to PDF or Excel does not do. It has the added benefit of being searchable within Smartsheet.

 

Sheets count against the limit.

Reports and Templates do not.

 

You can also talk to your Account Manager if you have one. I think they may be able to add sheets for a different fee. I have customers that have more than the 50 sheets/user (team) but they had them before I started working with them.

 

Craig

Stephen Smith

Craig,

 

Thanks, I didn't know that.  I am going to be making a bunch of templates.  I always find some sheets I can trim, but just have to stop what I am dong to do account maintenance.  Thanks for the tip.

Stephen Smith

Well, it seems pretty expensive for a single user to have to pay for a 5 user business account to just get extra sheets.  I think the pricing needs to be given some extra flexibility.  For example, a single user doing job costing can easily go through hundreds of sheets.  I use it for everything, but article outlines use up a lot of sheets in a hurry.  I now understand they can be made into templates, but does that really save you any disc space?

 

Smartsheet seems to be set up for a limited number of extensively used sheets. We have some like our phone log, that is huge.   However, those of us that are SS addicts use SS for everything.  We need cheaper sheets.

J. Craig Williams

Stephen,

 

I empathize.

I am typically bumping up against my sheet limit. If I had 50 more, I still would.

Same with closet space. 

 

I can only speculate, but I do not believe the issue for Smartsheet is disk space. I believe it is more likely traffic. Reports for example, can pull the data from all the sheets in your account. Building a system that says "this Report is a band-width hog and that one is not so bad" is probably cost prohibiitive. Same with a single sheet with a 1000 collaborators. By limiting (due to cost to customer) the number of Sheets, I believe they are also putting constraints on their infrastructure costs -- or rather passing them on to those that should be paying for it: us.

They might have chosen instead to charge us for band-width usage, but that is prone to the same surprise and anger that some people get when they open their cell phone bill.

 

Lastly, is a sheet that is in an account with 3 licensed user worth more or less than a sheet that is in an account that only has one licensed user?

I think the answer is "it depends".

 

Craig