True Auto Saving?

Hi C Wood.

I totally agree... We have just signed up for a month to test Smartsheets. Currently we are finding that the sheets do not update immediately like they do in Google Doc's. I have read the help documentation on this and it seems that the way Smartsheets operates is:

1) A save is required by the person editing - and 

2) then an update by the others collaborating on that sheet.

This seems very archaic in terms of on-line spreadsheet sharing.

Another Management Application "Gantter" also requires a save - however at least with this program the sheet does not require a manual refresh as well - this happens automatically within 1 to 3 seconds of the change occurring. 

As you can imagine if we have 6 people using a single sheet - all with the ability to edit then the process of constantly saving and refreshing gets logistically impractical.

Before we proceed with Smartsheets, we really need to know if this is something that can be changed or will be changed in the very near future. 

So far everything in Smartsheets looks perfect for our requirements

I need feedback on this ASAP since we need to implement a task Management system very quickly

Thanks

Hi everyone - thanks for posting and for providing your feedback! Currently, Smartsheet supports two types of autosaving - upon closing a sheet and after a set time of inactivity. I understand you are looking for a Google Doc style of autosaving and I will submit your suggestion to our Product team. 

It is not necessary to refresh your sheet after each collaborate makes a change by clicking the refresh button. As a quicker process, press CTRL + S (CMD + S on a Mac) on your keyboard to save your sheet (saving will also refresh and will keep your place in the sheet). Keep an eye out for the banner prompting you to refresh and notice the icon on the sheet's tab which indicates if changes have been made:

Jamison, the auto-save feature will save the sheet after a set time of inactivity without notifying the user. You can enable this by going to Account > Personal Settings > Settings.

Here is what I heard about AutoSave:

Autosave - Its on the road map to get the auto-save feature to work when your in idle or not. However, we don't have a timeline

It's one of those little omissions that dilutes the ability to distinguish Smartsheet from other similar tools. If the user is doing version control in his head, we're effectively back to square one. It looks, from the posting above, that Gantter has this matter resolved. I'll check it out to see. I have >50 collaborators on my project, so it will be crucial to have something that addresses this! Thanks for the suggestion! 

I just wanted to drop in and say I'm sorely disappointed that a year later and it seems smartsheet is still no closer to realtime collaboration.  The touted "multi-user collaboration" features that drew me to try smartsheets in the first place are no better than an MS Project file on a shared drive.  In this day and age, to say your web based prodcut has multi-user collaboration features should be no less than realtime collaboration.  The save/refresh model is antiquated and has no place in what looks like a great package.  Unfortunately I won't be around long enough to see SmartSheets full potential as realtime collaboration is a requirement for our purposes.

I mean even auto save/refresh every minute would be better than what you have. Seems like I could do that with a greasemonkey script (and maybe I will!). While actual realtime a-la google sheets could require significant core changes, it doesn't seem like an autosave feature would be that hard to do. Certianly not a yearlong project.

I'll check back next year.  

We desperately need this functionality. As a remote member of a team whenever I develop smartsheet users collaborating are required to reload to see any changes I make. People want to see realtime results. Getting this functionality would be essential for a number of users.