Hello All -
I am looking for a solution in SS to maintain our department's inventory/stock. Prior to adding materials to inventory, we collect and report regulatory and material information through workflows and approval requests. Once the workflow is complete and the material is approved, a final email is sent to the requestor and Purchasing indicating a PO can be created. This last step serves as a "check-in" ticket when the material is received, allowing us to capture information such as:
- Number of containers received
- Weight of each container
- Container tare weight
- Vendor batch/lot number
- Receipt date
- Storage location
Right now, I have the workflow built through PO issuance, but I'm uncertain how best to move into the inventory phase of the project.
I'm hoping someone has built something similar and can share insight, lessons learned, sheet structure, reports, dashboards, automations, or any pitfalls to avoid. This project has a short implementation timeline, so I'm trying to leverage existing best practices where possible.
The end goal is to have a system that:
- Houses our material regulatory records and approval history (EHS, SDS, compliance reviews, etc.).
- Provides visibility to all materials within our department inventory. (SAP is our warehouse/inventory system, but we need departmental-level visibility.)
- Tracks material receipts, container counts, weights, lot/batch numbers, and storage locations.
- Tracks inventory consumption and remaining quantities at the container and/or material level.
- Provides visibility into material status (Requested, Approved, Ordered, Received, In Inventory, Consumed, Disposed, etc.).
- Maintains a complete audit trail of material lifecycle activities and communications.
- Serves as a central source of truth rather than relying on emails, spreadsheets, and individual notes.
- Generates reports and dashboards showing current inventory, low-stock materials, aging inventory, and consumption trends.
- Supports multiple users updating inventory activity while maintaining data integrity and traceability.
- Scales as material volumes increase without becoming difficult to maintain.
- For those using Smartsheet for inventory, stock management, laboratory materials, chemicals, raw materials, or regulated products:
- Did you use one sheet or multiple linked sheets?
- How do you track receipts vs. consumption?
- Do you use reports or dashboards as the primary inventory view?
- Did you leverage DataMesh, Bridge, Resource Management, or other integrations?
- What would you do differently if you were starting over today?
Any examples, screenshots, recommendations, or lessons learned would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
