Open Row Attachments in Native Application?

Derrek Davis

For some reason our ability to open attachments (from Google Drive) to Smartsheet rows in their native application - .DOCX in Word, .XLS in Excel, .PDF in Adobe, etc. - has suddenly stopped and Smatsheet is only allowing us to open in Google Applications?

Has anyone else faced this and how do we resolve this problem...

Genevieve P.

Hi @Derrek Davis

If you're attaching a file from Google Drive, when you click on the file in Smartsheet it will open up in a pop-up window using the Drive URL, not in Smartsheet. This means that the options for how to open the file from that pop-up window is based on your Drive settings.

For example, I don't have Adobe as a connected option in my Drive, so it won't appear when I access Drive from Smartsheet either.

It looks like the Microsoft suite recently had an update (August 10th) specific to security that requires users to re-authenticate and agree to new terms. I would recommend reviewing your Microsoft suite, approving the new update, then checking to see if your connection in Drive is still there.

Let me know if this helps!

Cheers,

Genevieve

Derrek Davis

Genevieve - That is what I thought as well except that when I go to Google Drive and try to open that same file I am afforded the option of opening it in Word or Adobe or whatever the native file format is. So it is working correctly on the Google Drive side, which then means there is some issue with the connectivity between Smartsheet and Google Drive as best I can tell.

And to add a bit more detail, this worked just fine until 2 days ago on both of my computers. Now neither works from the Smartsheet side?

Any other thoughts on how to fix.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Derrek Davis

The URL Smartsheet uses is slightly different than the preview window that shows when clicking on a file in a folder (as in my image below, see the "folder" text in the URL).

Instead, it takes the URL that will lead directly to the file from Drive. This is the "Open in New Window" link, here:

Can you try accessing your file directly from Google Drive but use the "Open in new window" link? Do you see the Adobe option from this window in Drive, as well as the Folder level?

Thanks!

Genevieve

Derrek Davis

It does not give me that option, it looks just like Smartsheet.

Genevieve P.

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/301441#Comment_301441

Hi @Derrek Davis

Thank you for confirming this! Since you see the same behaviour when accessing your files directly through Drive (without being connected to Smartsheet at all) it looks like this issue is indeed related to the Microsoft Office update that occurred on August 10th. That date lines up with when you first started seeing the unexpected behaviour, too.

I would recommend going into each application to approve the update, then coming back to Drive to see if this resolves the issue. If this hasn't helped, I would recommend reaching out to the Google Drive Community, here, instead.

Cheers,

Genevieve