ENGAGE recap & more: Community Corner Newsletter [October 2023]

Hi Smartsheet Community, I'm Rebeca from the Community Team. I'm excited to let you know that from now on, this newsletter will be available every month!

Big shout-out to Genevieve for an amazing newsletter in July. 👏 And now, let's get into all the highlights from the last couple of months, ENGAGE, and learn a bit more about me at the end of the issue.

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Community highlights

Help us welcome some of our newest Member introductions in Show & Tell or look through the Trending section for more ways to connect.

Say hello to these Community Members 👋🏻

Popular ideas & feature requests (reviewed by the Product Team)!

What's it going to be? Head to the Smartsheet Product and Ideas Topic to share and vote on ideas.

Make sure to check out everything that we announced at ENGAGE!

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Community Updates

In Case You Missed It (ICYMI)

Meet our Sponsor X: Girlstart

Join the conversation to earn a new badge

October Question of the Month

Share your answer by October 31

ENGAGE Attendee Badge

View the Badge Dashboard

Smartsheet Travel Diaries + Giveaway Winner @W Straubhaar

Check out the amazing photo submissions

Smartsheet ENGAGE 2023 delivers style, efficiency, and scale

Learn about our upcoming innovations

Community Virtual Booth Games

Try out our ENGAGE games!

Three Factors To Consider When Evaluating A Tool For Scalability

Learn about scalability from Praerit Garg, Smartsheet Chief Product Officer and EVP of engineering

Ambassadors & Leaders

Up leveled recently? Keep an eye out for the group invite soon!

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Pass the mic 🎤 Community Champions

Community Champions are members who demonstrate product expertise and generosity in sharing best practices and support with others on the platform.

"A lot of my Smartsheet knowledge has been self taught, but leveraged from experts in the Community and from other industry leads. Watching YouTube content and communicating on forums has helped arm me with tools to quickly and effectively complete work. I also love hosting and attending User Groups!"

- @Chris Mondeau, Strategic Solutions Manager at Optimum Consultancy Services

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Member Appreciation

See Activity feed for more

This month's leaderboard

Member spotlights

@Colleen Patterson Here

Meet Top 3 ENGAGE in-app Scavenger Hunt (And our raffle winner!)

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Overachiever's Motivation Mix

The Smartsheet Overachievers are here to give you the songs that will keep you going and keep you achieving! Here's what's on the playlist right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR1lgEMMJwo

The 1975, "Happiness"

"Each time I hear this song, I feel like I've rejuvenated my love for rediscovering and reveling in the brilliance of something or someone. That's what this song is all about! To take a moment to stop, dance, and say 'my my my' just makes it! It's impossible to not at least bop my head. Or maybe I just love 'my my mys' because I also love 'My My My' by Troye Sivan."

- @Andria Hoyle, Material Planner II at Seagen, United States

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More about me

Hey there! I'm Rebeca, the Engagement Specialist in our Community. You'll usually see me in announcements, greeting new members, commenting and responding to your questions.

A few things about me:

I've been a part of the Community team since the end of May, and I've loved getting to know you—and your excellent musical taste!
I love reading + organizing, so I have a lot of fun keeping track of my growing book collection with Smartsheet.
Outside of work, I like to spend time in nature, visiting new places, books and music.
I'm Costa Rican, and greatly enjoy exploring my country. Check out the T-Rex I found! Jurassic Park was in Costa Rica, right? 😉

👉 My favorite tip

There are badges that are easy to get, but that you might've missed. Check out the Badges Dashboard, and explore them all! If you use Brandfolder, add this one (+ some extra points) to your collection in just a few minutes. 😁

Until next time!

Rebeca

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Give us your feedback

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Comments

Paul Newcome

@Rebeca S. I'd love to find out more abut how you are keeping track of your growing book collection! I have built a couple of "library reference" type solutions but am always looking for new ideas.

Pamela Wagner

Love this and thank you! How might I give feedback to the Engage committee? I would love to be able to attend but I just can't make the travel. It would be so awesome to have a full virtual registration option. Hoping they will consider that for future events.

Alison C.

@Andria Hoyle MY MY MY, you picked such a good song for the Motivation Mix. ✨

Darla Brown

Thank you, @Rebeca S. This is such a fun post. Loved the intro 🦖

Fun fact: I just got my new library card today! I'm about to dive into Throne of Glass.

Rebeca S.

Hi @Paul Newcome, I'm still playing around with this, so I could use new ideas too! 😃

I keep a sort of inventory with the general details (title, author, country, year of publication, page number, etc.), and update it when I get something new with a form. I also keep track of what specific types of books I collect/read the most, % of read vs unread ones, personal ratings, and recent reading habits. For example, which languages, genres, book lengths I've read the most this year.

Rebeca S.

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/399527#Comment_399527

Hi @Pamela Wagner! 👋

The ENGAGE team has received the feedback about having a virtual option, so they will consider it.

Rebeca S.

Hey @Darla Brown, glad you liked the intro 🦖😁

New library card, that's so exciting! You'll have to let me know what you think of Throne of Glass, and if you would recommend me to read it 😉

I just got "The Priory of the Orange Tree," so that's what I'll be reading next 📚️

Paul Newcome

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/399595#Comment_399595

I hadn't thought about allowing users to leave ratings or trending anything. Do you have anything in place for searching based on author or genre? The couple of solutions I have built involve a check out/in process. My personal favorite is a private collection of hundreds of books, but they allow friends and family to check out whatever they want.

It involved a lot of helper columns because we wanted to cover a lot of variables for being able to search without actually accessing the sheet that houses the book list.

Once they get it all organized, we are going to list locations as well. Haha.

"Library" view:

Admin/Owner view:

Rebeca S.

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/399667#Comment_399667

Wow, that's an awesome solution, much more elaborate than the one I have right now! Your check out/in process is such a good idea, I might need to try it out because so far I only mark them as "currently reading" when they are in use.

I'm still playing around with the searching process, but I'll definitely let you know if I come up with something that works nicely 😄

Paul Newcome

To be fair... The check in/out process is because people who don't currently live in the house can borrow books. As you can see, there are a few that have been out for a while. Whether the owners want to read them or someone else is interested in reading it, it's nice for the owners to be able to track someone down and remind them to bring the book back when they are done with it. That was actually the main problem they were running into that spurned the creation of this.

They had some problems with books disappearing and not being able to remember who borrowed them, so they bought a nice notebook and pen for people to write their name, date, and book they were borrowing. The problem with that was people would forget to write the date down or hand-writing wasn't legible or they would borrow two in a series but only write one down.

The search function, ease of use, and the sheer novelty of having an electronic tracker in someone's house appeals enough to people that they happily use it. The kids even giggle a little bit sometimes because they think it is so fancy.

Rebeca S.

@Paul Newcome I've lost books like that too 😅 which is why it seems like such a good idea to use a check in/out process. And I totally can see why people would find this option fun to use, it's so cool!

Paul Newcome

@Rebeca S. Haha. The struggle is real. I have also been thinking about creating some "library cards" that double as bookmarks for the more regular borrowers. I would use a QR Code that opens the appropriate form (in or out) with at least the person's name pre-filled.

I thought about creating some scannable barcodes for the books, but (naturally) we don't want to attach anything directly to a book.

One thing I am definitely contemplating though is adjusting the "Availability" column to read either "Not Available" or have a clickable url that will open the form pre-filled with the book info so they can just check the book out directly from the search results and only need to provide their name.

Darla Brown

@Paul Newcome I see a template opportunity for this!! 🤩 I'll be a champion!!

Rebeca S.

@Paul Newcome The library cards/bookmarks with the QR Code would be fun, and I think people would love using them. Also, that "Availability" column adjustment would make the check out process so easy, great idea!

@Darla Brown Oooh 👀

Paul Newcome

Now my gears are really turning. Haha.

If I am going to go through the effort of creating a special QR code for a user, I may as well add them as an unlicensed user to the account. Then they can have their own log in info. Since the search feature is through a form, I can capture the user through the search submission which can in turn be pushed to the custom URL in the search results so they don't even have to enter their name. Just check that the pre-populated info is correct and hit submit.

Give them special "Members Only" features of quick check out/in. Ugh... Why do I always create extra work for myself?? Hahaha

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