Is there a way (or workaround) to make the "Send me a copy of my responses" a mandatory field in the

Vane

Is there a way (or workaround) to make the "Send me a copy of my responses" a mandatory field in the forms?

Thank you

Julie Fortney

There isn't a way to make that a required field, but you could set up a workflow to automatically send an alert to the submitter with a copy of their entry. You'd have to collect their email address in order to do so. There are two options for this:

Option 1

1. Add a "Created By" column to your sheet.
2. Toggle on the "Require Smartsheet login to access this form" in your form settings. Otherwise, your Created By column will populate with web-form@smartsheet.com.

Option 2

1. Add a Submitter/Requester contact column.
2. Make it a required field on your form, and click the email validation option in your form field setting.

I hope this helps!

Julie Fortney

Sure, here's a simple example. You could further customize the message they receive with the copy of the form, and include only certain fields if you'd like. With the setup below, they would receive a copy of all sheet columns for that row.

I would also make sure this form setting is UNCHECKED, so your submitters don't check it and end up receiving two copies of their submissions.

Julie Fortney

Unfortunately we don't have a way to exclude the sheet link unless you select "Message only."

Luckily you can still include information from your sheet by including the fields in the message itself. It takes a bit more setup than just selecting the fields you want to include, but it works.

Here's an example of what the notification would look like with the setup above:

Date: 12/15/2022

Project Name: Holiday Shopping Center Reno

Issue Details: Need to plan special events space for Santa photos.

Side note: Providing a sheet link in the message does NOT change the recipient's view/edit permissions on the sheet. If they are not already at least a viewer on the sheet, they will not be able to access it. Instead, Smartsheet will display an option for them to request access to the sheet. If they submit a request, the sheet owner will receive it and be able to grant or deny access.

Julie Fortney

There isn't a way to make that a required field, but you could set up a workflow to automatically send an alert to the submitter with a copy of their entry. You'd have to collect their email address in order to do so. There are two options for this:

Option 1

1. Add a "Created By" column to your sheet.
2. Toggle on the "Require Smartsheet login to access this form" in your form settings. Otherwise, your Created By column will populate with web-form@smartsheet.com.

Option 2

1. Add a Submitter/Requester contact column.
2. Make it a required field on your form, and click the email validation option in your form field setting.

I hope this helps!

Vane

@Julie Fortney Thank you! This is extremely helpful. Let's assume that we collect their email address, how should I set up the workflow?

I would imagine we will need to set up a workflow from scratch, but then which fields should we select? The end goal would be that anytime somebody 'submits' the form, this will trigger a notification to the submitter and include their responses in the email notification.

Julie Fortney

Sure, here's a simple example. You could further customize the message they receive with the copy of the form, and include only certain fields if you'd like. With the setup below, they would receive a copy of all sheet columns for that row.

I would also make sure this form setting is UNCHECKED, so your submitters don't check it and end up receiving two copies of their submissions.

Vane

@Julie Fortney Thank you so much! This is extremely helpful and exactly what I was looking for :)

Vane

@Julie Fortney Hi - I tried to test out the above process, and it worked as expected. However, I noticed that when the submitter receives the notification email, it includes a link to the original sheet.

Is there a way to 1) not provide the link in the notification email OR 2) not give the submitter visibility into the original sheet?

Thank you

Julie Fortney

Unfortunately we don't have a way to exclude the sheet link unless you select "Message only."

Luckily you can still include information from your sheet by including the fields in the message itself. It takes a bit more setup than just selecting the fields you want to include, but it works.

Here's an example of what the notification would look like with the setup above:

Date: 12/15/2022

Project Name: Holiday Shopping Center Reno

Issue Details: Need to plan special events space for Santa photos.

Side note: Providing a sheet link in the message does NOT change the recipient's view/edit permissions on the sheet. If they are not already at least a viewer on the sheet, they will not be able to access it. Instead, Smartsheet will display an option for them to request access to the sheet. If they submit a request, the sheet owner will receive it and be able to grant or deny access.

Vane

Hi @Julie Fortney, after setting up the workflow, we noticed that some submitters were not receiving the email notification with their responses.

We checked the workflow settings (See below), and it looks like we could select the second option "Limited". However, do you know whether this option will allow the user to receive a notification email even if they don't have a Smartsheet account? Thanks. Ideally, we would like every submitter to receive the notification email regardless of 1) having access to the sheet and 2) having a Smartsheet account.

Julie Fortney

If you want notifications to go to any email address provided, even those not shared to the sheet or part of your Smartsheet account, you'll need to select "Unrestricted." That option is grayed out because your account-level automation controls are set to disallow this option. A system admin can update the account-level controls to allow this, if they agree to do so. Some admins restrict this option to protect your organization's data.

Here's a help article with instructions on how to make the admin-level change, and more info about notification settings:

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2476586-control-who-is-notified-about-alerts-and-requests