My first Book! (On Smartsheet)

Darren Mullen

I've been a bit quiet on the community the last couple of months. I've been busy with new client work coming in as well as a special project, which I just completed, Smartsheet User Guide for Accelerated Learning: Powerful Tips to Jump-Start Your Smartsheet Training.

Smartsheet has great training materials available already, so this book is intended to be a compliment to currently available material. In fact, I took some inspiration for book content based on questions I see asked in this community, so I have the community to thank for inspiration! I included some tricks that I've learned over the years that aren't necessarily apparent.

If anyone decides to check it out, please give me feedback, and a review would be nice as well :) .

Ryan Sides

Hey @Darren Mullen congrats on publishing! A couple of questions...

1) What you found most surprising about a newbie's journey with Smartsheet?

2) What are some of the common mistakes you see new users make?

Darren Mullen

@Ryan Sides

Thank you! As for your questions:

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/354880#Comment_354880

1) What you found most surprising about a newbie's journey with Smartsheet?

-> I think what most surprised me is how much functionality I could squeeze out of Smartsheet even though I wasn't using it for it's intended use (Gantt charts, project plans, etc). The reason I ended up using Smartsheet is because I was working at a company managing parts obsolescence and they really needed a workflow solution. Being that it was a large multi-national corporation, having the It department build out a solution was a lot of red tape. I then discovered we had Smartsheet and went to town building out a solution. Luckily I had access to premium apps like Dynamic View and Data Mesh to really provide a solution most were happy with.

I also was a bit surprised about how much I was able to use Smartsheet as a database and link data in multiple sheets together, even though this is not something Smartsheet is really intended for. There are limits to this of course, but for smaller data sets like I was working with, it was a great solution.

2) What are some of the common mistakes you see new users make?

-> The most common mistakes I see new users make revolve around a misunderstanding of formulas and the syntax required. Some mistakes like losing track of the number of parentheses are mistakes all users make, but sometimes take experience to troubleshoot quickly, while others are related to misunderstanding the parameters in formulas. I strongly suggest all users to study the Smartsheet Function list and reference it frequently. Also, new users should consider going through at least the basics in Smartsheet University to get a solid foundation.

Genevieve P.

@Darren Mullen Thank you for sharing your work with the Community!

Darren Mullen

@Genevieve P. Thank you! Looking to continue providing value to the community.

Darren Mullen

Sneak Peek

https://youtu.be/7BTKrj9hT88

Alison C.

@Darren Mullen I am in AWE!!! Amazing work!

Darren Mullen

@Alison Clancy Thank you! Hoping it provides some value :)