Exporting a Dashboard or Printing Sheets Differently

Leslie Merlino

I am working on an invoice for a client that prints nicely. I have a solution set up, but they would like to be able to export the dashboard to a pdf format and use with adobe to get digital signatures. I am trying to find a working solution for this to either export or use a sheet instead of dashboard. Does anyone have any ideas on a solution that may work for this? Either inside of Smartsheets or using an add-on? I am not very familiar with add-on's other than pivot charts...

Dale Murphy

@Leslie Merlino I recommend exploring the SmartSheet "Generate Documents" function, and how it works with digital signature functionality. It will let you push data into a fillable PDF row by row.

We use Generate Documents for an HR function and it works quite well. It works even better when you have good control over how much text you will get in each column/field.

dm

Leslie Merlino

@Dale Murphy Thank you! Is this an add-on? I have not heard of it before and I don't see it in the current automation options.

Karen Webber

Hi @Leslie, seconding Dale's enthusiasm about the "Generate Document" functionality - I use it to map all documents we want to keep in easier-to-read format. You can generate a pdf by right-clicking on a row and choosing the "generate document" option, then mapping a prepared pdf form with fillable fields. You can download the document or attach it to the row, and anyone accessing the attachments field after this point can then download or open that pdf.

That said, the only issue I have with it is the one I suspect you'll have, from your question - it's not connected to an automation process. I've submitted an enhancement request for automation of the process (and am not the only one!), but until such time I set automation to alert a relevant team member when it's time to generate a pdf, before it goes where it needs to.

Leslie Merlino

@Karen Botha actually, the automation is not a necessity in this case, I just thought that's where it would be. Thank you so much for your help, and to @Dale Murphy as well. I'm very excited about this. I have been so buried in work lately, I did not catch the notification of this feature!! This is a game changer for my clients!! I just found a video walkthrough and am digging in!! 🤗