Significant Spam Submissions Through Smartsheet Forms – Need a Solution

Question

We are experiencing a significant and increasing amount of spam submissions through multiple Smartsheet forms.

CAPTCHA is already enabled on the affected forms, but the spam continues to get through. The volume has become disruptive enough that we need a more effective solution.

We have also been working with Smartsheet Support, but unfortunately our previous case was automatically closed after 10 days of inactivity even though the issue was never resolved. We have opened a new case, but we need to get this addressed quickly.

Has anyone else experienced a large volume of spam submissions even with CAPTCHA enabled? If so, what additional controls or solutions have actually worked for you?

At this point, this has become a serious enough problem that if we cannot find an effective resolution, we may have to evaluate alternative products.

ccoleman · Answer

I appreciate the advice, Adrien. However, we are an organization with many public-facing forms, and recreating forms and distributing new URLs every time this happens really isn't a practical solution for us.

My main question still remains: why can't Smartsheet provide an option to require CAPTCHA on every submission? If we could simply enable CAPTCHA permanently for public forms, it seems like that would address the underlying problem rather than continually replacing forms and URLs.

Adrien Leduc · Answer

Hi @ccoleman I'm assuming you're not requiring users to login to use the form and that it is on design.

Since this would be a "public" form, and captcha has not helped, it means your form is out there and being abused.

I would recommend retiring this form and creating a new version from the same sheet, it will be a new URL so hopefully it should stop the spam. From there obviously, avoid sharing the link anywhere public.