A number of our customers have reached out to us in the last 48 hours asking about our position on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing Protection Act (CISPA). We have deep resevations about legislation that seeks to limit privacy protections currently available to our customers. As a service provider the trust we have earned with our customers is of paramount importance and fundamental to their success and ours.
 
We view it as our duty to protect our customer's data and their rights regarding that data. As we have educated ourselves on certain provisions of CISPA, we have grown concerned that our customer's rights would be undermined by the elimination of judicial oversight governing the disclosure of information. As such our official statement is that we do not support CISPA.
 
-Mark Mader, CEO Smartsheet
 

A few weeks ago, we covered the basics of using Update Requests to collaborate with others.  This week, we'll take these concepts a couple steps further and explain a more advanced way to automate these reminders with an approach that you can tailor to your team and processes: conditional reminders.

Sheet Level Reminders

A quick refresher: to remind your team of upcoming deadlines, it’s easy to set a simple sheet-level reminder to send an email to each assigned team member when tasks are due. However, you can take these to the next level with conditional reminders. Conditional reminders will only send a reminder if the task is not complete. 

How to Create A Conditional Reminder

• Add a new column, ‘Reminder Date’, to your sheet.

Use the ‘Reminder Date’ column to generate the dates that will send Reminders to your team, rather than using a ‘Start Date’ or ‘End Date’ column.  When adding this column, make sure to set the column type to ‘Date’.

• Use an IF formula. 

Next, use an IF formula in the ‘Reminder Date’ column that will automatically insert the End Date of a task only ifit hasn’t been completed.  

Depending on your team’s method for tracking task completion, you can use a few different column types to indicate when something is complete.  The most common scenarios that we encounter are either a checkbox column or a percentage column.

** When you’re using a checkbox column to track task completion, your formula will look something like this:

=IF(Complete4 = 0, [End Date]4, “”)

This formula will check the value listed in row 4 of the ‘Complete’ column to see if it is equal to 0.  In formulas, 0 represents an un-checked box and 1 represents a checked box.  If the box is unchecked, and the task still needs to be completed, the formula will insert the End Date listed in row 4 into the Reminder Date column.  

** When you’re using a percentage column to track task completion, your formula will look something like this:

=IF([% Complete]4 <> 1, [End Date]4, “”)

This formula will check the value in row 4 of the ‘% Complete’ column to see if it is “not equal to” (represented by <> ) 1 (which is the decimal equivalent of 100%). If so, it inserts the End Date listed in row 4. Otherwise, it leaves the cell blank.

In both of these scenarios, with these formulas, the End Date of a task will appear automatically in the Reminder Date column as long as the task remains incomplete.

Now that you’ve built an IF formula, apply it to the other rows in the Reminder Date column by clicking on the bottom right corner of the cell and dragging down.

• Set a new sheet-level Reminder

Now, you can set up a sheet-level Reminder that is driven by the Reminder Date, rather than the task End Date.

If you’d like to streamline the look of your sheet, you can hide your new Reminder Date column to cut down on the amount of information displayed in your sheet.  The formulas, and reminders, will still be working “behind the scenes.”

Hungry for more formula tips?  Check out these pointers for building a nested IF statement, learn how to build a formula to count checkboxes, or watch this quick tutorial to get some other ideas for using formulas in your sheets:

Til next week, dig in and explore!

- Support Team

Guest blogger, IT/Project Management consultant and author Brad Egeland, explores the good and the bad of remote team members:

Allowing for geographically dispersed workers is not right for every organization. At least it may not be in the mind of the person running the company, something Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer aptly demonstrated this year. But if your primary concern is getting the right skill sets and the best resources, you must allow virtual teams and remote work to some degree.

Consider the pros and cons of remote workers and virtual teams:

Pro – Budget Needs

In a tight budget environment, virtual teams save costs. Less travel, shorter meetings, and more time focused on assigned tasks are all positive byproducts of remote teamwork that help keep project budgets in line. As rebuttal, many execs cite water cooler discussions as value-added productivity. However, during my 27 years managing projects, the number of water cooler discussions, over-the-cubicle-wall banter, and end-of-meeting chatter I’ve observed that contribute more than “what I did last night” type information has been only a handful. Most have been time-wasters.

Con – Customer Perception

Your customers need to be part of the decision process. If your client requires a hands-on team that they can have on site, or if they are more comfortable knowing team members are co-located, virtual teams may not be right for your company. Customers’ opinions definitely matter since they pay the bills.

Pro – Team Skill Set

This is a big one. When limited by geographical barriers, time zones, or cost of and resistance to relocating, a virtual team opens the possibility to get necessary skill sets for your project or organization. You can go after any talent level and may even get a bargain on price because you aren’t forcing people to move across the country or around the world.

Con – Team Face Time

Face to face time may be necessary if you or one or more team members are weak communicators. For the project manager, communication is job one.  If efficient and effective communication is not your forte, managing remote project teams is probably not for you.

Pro – Green Project Practices

Remote teams promote green project practices. Most deliverables are paperless and delivered electronically. The same goes for status reports, project schedules, and forecasts. Through the use of conference calls and video conferencing, travel shrinks or becomes non-existent. Email communication is basically free; it’s definitely green.

Only shortsightedness leads management to ban outright remote employees and virtual project teams. Virtual teams don’t work every time. Mission critical projects may require face time beyond kickoff meetings. Some customers need direct dealings with project delivery team members. Make a considered decision that works best for your business, projects, customer satisfaction, and ROI.

Adding formulas into your sheets, like nested IF statements and conditional reminders, builds really powerful automation into your workflows. While it's fun to build complex formulas, today we'd like to take some time to tell you about the little things: our favorite shortcuts. These simple tricks take just seconds, and can make repetitive tasks so much easier.

Let’s start with some keyboard shortcuts:

• Open a Sheet Use ctrl+/ (PC) or command+/ (Mac) This one is a favorite on our team!  Use these keystrokes to display the Open a Sheet form, and you’ll be able to quickly search your entire library of sheets. 

• Insert The Insert key (PC) or control+i (Mac) is another classic.  Use this shortcut to automatically insert a new row above the one you’re working on in your sheet.  Freedom from the mouse!
• Copy / Paste  Dare we say it... using ctrl+c (PC) or command+c (Mac) to Copy and ctrl+v (PC) or command+v (Mac) to Paste may be the handiest keyboard shortcuts of them all.  If you’re not already using these shortcuts, try them out – you’ll be amazed with how much easier they make your life.

Copy / Paste also make it easy transfer small amounts of data from an Excel file into a sheet.  Single-click on a cell in Excel and use ctrl+c (PC) or command+c (Mac) to copy the data.  Next, open up your sheet in Smartsheet, single-click on a cell, and use ctrl+v or command+v to paste it in.  These same steps will work for copying and pasting a number of cells or rows in Excel.  Simply single-click on a cell to paste into your sheet, and the data will appear in the same order that it does in Excel.

• These three shortcuts are just a sampling of the keyboard shortcuts available in Smartsheet, so be sure to check out all these other shortcuts.

Here are some other shortcuts, special to Smartsheet:

• Date Columns In date columns, the letter “t” means “today,” meaning when you type it into a cell in a date column, the cell will instantly populate with today’s date.  Next, try typing “t+5” – you’ll see the cell populate with a date that is five days from today.  Pretty slick!
• Drag-Fill Use this feature to quickly copy a formula, or cell data from one cell to multiple more in your sheet.  Select a cell by clicking on it, then click-and-drag by the bottom right corner to copy either cell data or a formula into the adjacent cell.

Drag-Fill is particularly powerful if you want to use it to repeat a pattern down a column, for example listing the numbers 1-100 on the rows on your sheet.

Start by typing the numbers 1,2, and 3 in the first three rows of the column.  Highlight all three cells (click the top cell and drag down to the third before releasing your click).  Mouse over to the bottom, right corner of these three cells – you’ll know you’re in the right spot when your mouse icon turns into a cross-hair.

Click and drag the bottom, right corner of the cell down the length of the column.  The dotted border that shows up as you drag down tells you which cells with be affected when you release your click.

When you release your click, Smartsheet will automatically continue the numbering pattern down through the column.

[Learn more about drag-fill and copy/paste in Smartsheet]

What are your favorite shortcuts?  Let us know here!

Til next week, dig in and explore!

- Support Team

From contributing writer, Lindsay Scott:

For a number of years I’ve been involved in a specialist project management group – PMOSIG. A voluntary specialist interest group dedicated to PMOs – Project, Programme and Portfolio Offices. Being part of a voluntary group which plans, organises and delivers conferences and meetings has been an interesting experience. Events management, in my eyes, is a lighter version of project management. The key to success is keeping the management side light – or if you prefer K.I.S.S. – Keep It Simple Stupid! So, even though everyone in our voluntary group has a project management background, in the early years we didn’t use any tools to plan and manage conferences. It was as if we made an unconscious decision to disregard everything our profession advocates. Surely we could plan and manage our event on a napkin?

No.

The simplest lesson we learnt, one that made us change our whole event management approach, was that team members needed to know where we were within the plan, what each of us needed to do, and when each task was due (and without the stress and hassle!) Using a simple event planning project schedule, we created clarity amongst the voluntary team. Everyone had access to the schedule; they could see their assignments and understand the impacts any late deliveries would produce. What proved especially helpful was for volunteers to be able to share progress notes and add documents – a godsend when you have no easily accessible central storage area.

The schedule also created a sense of urgency. For anyone who has worked in a voluntary group like this you’ll be well aware of the differences between people’s work commitment when they’re being paid for it (their day job) and when it’s something they do in their spare time (along with all of their other personal commitments)

If you’re interested in creating similar events in your region or even within your own company – project management communities within organisations have been growing in popularity due to the benefits of knowledge transfer and sharing of experiences amongst peers – here’s an overview of what you’ll need to think about and schedule.

Brainstorm and Planning

Just like starting a new project – we spend time thinking about the theme or the idea for the conference. Then we start getting into the detail – what will the full day conference look like; how much would we charge and adding new lines to our base schedule if this conference was going to be different to the last.

Speaker Selection

We’d have different speakers at each conference – chosen because of their specialism and fit with our conference agenda. Speakers need managing too and they especially love conference organisers who give them clear briefs, deadlines and logistical arrangements so they know where they’re turning up and when.

Event Marketing

The longer lead time you have before the conference, the more marketing you can do. It’s about keeping the event in people’s minds without spamming them. Talking about the event in different ways – like items on LinkedIn groups, Twitter updates and different angles on conference agenda items covered in our newsletters.

Conference Logistics and Staffing

We found that conferences tended to go much more smoothly when we took more care over the planning – no surprise there I suppose for a bunch of project professionals! It meant there were no last minute nasty surprises and we could concentrate on the added the cherry to the top. By this we mean organising facilitated networking rather than leaving people to just mingle – we could facilitate interactive sessions giving a more professional impression rather than just leaving people to chat – and we could respond quickly to people’s individuals needs if there were any issues with things like the catering or organising taxi’s at the end of the event.

Evaluation

With the closedown phase – post conference – we always make sure there is time to do a lessons learnt. We discuss how it went from our own perspective; look at the feedback and create a report which might change the schedule for the next conference. This way we have a continuous loop of improvements – these can be easily fed into our baseline conference schedule ready for the next event in the future.

Here is our event planning template based on the screenshots in this article:

• View the event plan and budget sheet
• Open an editable version in Smartsheet

In today’s release, Smartsheet web forms got a shiny, new makeover (find all the details here). Now, web forms are even easier to build and customize to your heart’s content. With our new and improved web forms, we have a proposition for you. Take some time to explore the new features, and then tell us how you’re using Smartsheet web forms.  

Once submitted, you’ll toss your hat in the ring to win one of five American Express $100 giftcards! We’ll select the best of the best to add to the Smartsheet Web Form Hall of Fame. (We’re so confident that you’ll save time from introducing web forms to your workflow, we want to give you some extra cash to spend –  maybe a massage, a night out on the town, new fishing tackle – it’s up to you!)

You’ve got the entire month of May to submit your story. 

To help get your wheels turning, follow Smartsheet on Twitter (@smartsheet).  Each day this month, we’ll tweet out a different web form.  

Just how are other Smartsheet customers streamlining their worlds with web forms?  Here’s a quick peek:

• Collect data requests The gift processing department at Loyola University has transformed their workflow by exclusively using web forms to collect work requests from other departments.
• Gather employee feedback The makers of fine goat cheese at Cypress Grove Chevre use web forms to collect quality assurance information from their team in the field.
• Streamline job applications The HR department at GreatSchools collects resumes and job applications via web forms so applicant information fee directly into Smartsheet.
• Run online contests The marketing team at Telluride.com uses web forms for their online contests and competitions – and to track leads.
• Compile lead information The Precise Biometrics marketing team uses web forms to collect lead information while on the road at conferences.

If you’re a web form novice, check out this quick video to learn how to use Smartsheet web forms:

What are you waiting for?  Create your web form today!

Smarter, Easier Web Forms: Our Latest Smartsheet Release. Today, we’re excited to announce that web forms, one of our most popular features, are now supercharged! They’re easier to create and more customizable, giving you the power to take action on information you collect. Web forms are the only data collection tool that let you easily gather information, automatically consolidate responses, and take action to share, assign and track progress.

Here, our vice president of product management, Eric Browne, gives a quick tour of the latest updates:

Web Forms - Supercharged 

Creating a form and customizing it is easier than ever. Highlights to this release include:

• Simple drag-and-drop form creator. Creating, editing and previewing your form is now a snap.

• More form customization options. Brand your web form, add section dividers and date pickers, and send confirmation emails.

• Improved form management. Add new entries on the top or bottom of your sheet, and activate or deactivate forms.

• Create multiple forms per sheet. More options, more data.

• All the great existing form features are still available - you can embed web forms into any webpage, upload any type of file, and quickly take action on your data.

Getting Started with Web Forms

Jumpstart your work with some of our handiest web form templates:

• Event Registration:Register, track, and manage customers.

• Feedback Form: Get feedback, take action, and track it all.

• Application Form: Collect and track online job applications, with resumes. 

Share and Learn About Web Forms

See Web Forms in Action:Want a hands-on demonstration? Register for a live training webinar with an expert – a great way to introduce your entire team to web forms!

For a quick dose of daily web form inspiration,follow us on Twitter (@smartsheet). Each day this month, we’re tweeting out a different, ready-to-use web form.

Take some time to explore the new web form features, and then tell us how you’re using them. We’ve got five $100 gift cards to give away in exchange in our web form frenzy contest!

We’re thrilled about this release and excited to supercharge your web forms! Stay tuned for more exciting updates!

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, suddenly panicked that you've forgotten to take care of something at work?  You go in to the office the next day with the same nagging feeling – was that request emailed to you?  Or was it a conversation you had with a colleague at your desk?  Sorting through a scattered process is a real-life nightmare, stressful to say the least.  

A little over a year ago, Stacey Hughes, Director of Advancement and Information Services at Loyola University was all too familiar with similar scenarios.  Her team, the gift processing department, handles every single donation that comes to the University – and all of the personal information that comes along with donations.  And as the keepers of such a vital database, they are barraged with data requests from all other departments.

"We had been using Excel and email to try and track all of these requests.  It simply wasn’t working, we were drowning in data,” said Hughes.  It’s no surprise that Smartsheet web forms changed the game for this team.  “Smartsheet web forms have streamlined our department's processes. Now when others need data from us, they simply fill out a web form and the request goes straight into a sheet.  Smartsheet saves us time, fosters accountability, and promotes a culture of transparency and respect."  

Pretty slick, right?  Here’s how you can follow in Hughes’ footsteps:

• Step 1: Import old Excel spreadsheet data request form into Smartsheet. For years, Hughes and her team had an Excel file posted on Loyola’s intranet for anyone to fill out and then email to the gift processing department when they had a data request.  To begin the transition to Smartsheet, Hughes imported this spreadsheet to Smartsheet.
• Step 2: Customize your web form. Once a spreadsheet is in Smartsheet, creating a corresponding web form is straightforward.  Click the ‘Web Forms’ button on the bottom tab of your sheet and the web form builder will appear.  

Use the web form builder to customize the web form – turn column names from your sheet into detailed instructions on your web forms, make certain fields required for submissions, or re-order questions.

Hughes explained that one of the biggest hurdles her department faced was explaining to other departments all of the specifics that need to be included in a data request before her team can process it.  With the Excel forms that Loyola had been using, there was a lot of room for user error, and as a result, Hughes and her team spent a lot of time clarifying requests and chasing down missing details.  

Now, with Smartsheet web forms, request expectations are clear, and requests won’t make it onto the gift processing team’s sheet unless they are completely and accurately filled out.

• Step 3: Make web forms available to others. You have a variety of options to send your web form out to the masses: each web form has a unique URL that you can email to others or embed the web form itself on a frequently used resource page.

Hughes made her web forms available on Loyola’s intranet for anyone at the University to access when they have a data request for her department.

• Step 4: Use Smartsheet to stay organized and take action as web forms are submitted. Once others begin using web forms, inbound requests come directly into the University’s gift processing department’s sheet, rather than an email inbox.  The team has Alerts set on their sheet to keep them up-to-date when a new request comes in.  Hughes can assign a team member to complete a request, and team members use Smartsheet to track the steps to completing requests.  Hughes and her staff attach completed requests to their corresponding rows, and then send the row to the requestor.  

• Step 5: Share Smartsheet with others to keep communication open and maintain transparency.  Other departments have access to the data request sheet.  Now, when someone has a question about the status of their request, they can check Smartsheet for an update rather than interrupting their co-workers.  Time is saved and communication is improved.  Hughes also uses the Calendar View to show other departments what her team is working on.

“Changing the Way We Work”

“I’m addicted to Smartsheet,” says Hughes.  “It’s the way that we work, I can’t imagine running my department without it.”  

The benefits to Hughes and her department of using Smartsheet include:

• Unified formatting for all data requests.  The gift processing team gets all the information from others that they need the first time around, saving time and frustration.
• No more information locked in inboxes. Now it’s all in Smartsheet, so the team can easily work together to complete requests.
• History is kept and steps are archived. When similar requests come in, the steps to completion are documented and easy to reference and replicate.
• Improved accountability.  Switching to the Calendar view keeps the team on track and communicates to other departments clearly what the gift processors have on their plates
• Increased communication. Tracking everything in Smartsheet keeps all departments on the same page.

Streamlining the data request process is just one of the ways that Hughes and her team are using Smartsheet – read the Loyola University case study for the full story.

Welcome to the Web Form Hall of Fame, Loyola University!

- Kelly

This weekend we made some major updates to one of the most popular features in Smartsheet: web forms.  They make collecting information, collaborating, and taking action simple.  Now, it’s easier to customize web forms – check out the drag-and-drop form builder, new custom field options, and nifty confirmation options in the ‘Forms Options’ field of the form builder.

 In addition to these enhancements, it’s now possible to save more than one web form per sheet.

When Would You Need Multiple Forms Per Sheet?

Multiple forms per sheet are handy when you’re looking to gather information from different groups of people, but want to compile that information in the same spot.  For example, let’s say you want a way to collect information from your website from people who are either (1) requesting information on products or (2) those who would like to be a reseller of your products.

For both of these inquiries, some of the information that you’ll want to collect is the same (for example, personal information like name, email address, and phone number). However, each will also have a few different questions tailored to their needs (for example, reseller region from those inquiring about reseller opportunities).  

Keeping all inquiries on the same sheet will save your team time and hassle because everyone is working from the same place. 

We’ll walk you through how to set up multiple forms per sheet, and how to use ‘Hidden Fields’ and ‘Default Values’ to keep the different information straight.

The Nitty Gritty

• Just like everything else in Smartsheet, the basis for your process begins in a sheet.  Start from a blank sheet, a template from our Template Gallery, or one of your existing sheets.

Here’s the sheet for our example of collecting both Product and Reseller Inquiries.

With the sheet designed, the next step is customizing your web form.  To set-up and edit, click the ‘Web Forms’ tab on the bottom of your sheet and click ‘Create New Form’.

This will take you to the Web Form Editor.  By default, the title of the form corresponds to the sheet name and the fields of the form correspond to the names of the sheet columns.  All of these fields are editable.  Web form items are on the left, and when you select one item, its editable properties appear on the right.

We’ll start by making a form for Product Inquiries.  The drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to move around fields and group certain questions together, to get your web form just right.

• Once you’ve customized the form fields, add a field for ‘Source Page’ – since you’ll have inquiries from both Product and Reseller folks.  Make this field a ‘Hidden Field’ (so it won’t be seen by anyone filling out your form) with the default value of ‘Product web page.’  Now, each time the Product form is submitted, this default value will be added to your sheet – automatic differentiation!

• Follow these same steps to customize your web form for Reseller Inquiries, with different columns for Reseller-specific information.

• Now, you can post the URLs for each web form on your website, and all responses will compile in the same sheet.  To check on the status of your web forms, click the ‘Web Form’ tab for a dashboard view of all your forms.

This is just one example of a scenario in which multiple forms are helpful.  Use multiple forms per sheet to consolidate job applicants, surveys to multiple groups, and detailed feedback forms. 

The possibilities are endless – what will you do with them?  Tell us here in a comment, or enter the Web Form Frenzy for a chance to win!

Til next week, dig in and explore!

- Support Team

Last Saturday, Smartsheet released some amazing upgrades to our already popular web forms. To help mark the occassion we reached out to some of the Internet's top marketers, designers and usability experts and asked them to share their advice with you. The response was phenomenal. We heard from people like Rand Fishkin, Tim Ash and...well, take a look for yourself. You can read more about all the contributors at the end of this piece.

We asked two simple questions. Give one piece of advice for designing web forms and another for crafting online surveys. Also, we wanted their best, unflitered advice, so we asked them to speak in broad terms and not limit themselves to Smartsheet.

While reading the experts' responses we saw a few themes:

Forms

• Embrace brevity. Keep your form short.
• Avoid the unnecessary. If you can do without, don't ask.
• Create clarity. In field names and form fields, show exactly what you want.

Surveys

• Test. Try your survey on a few people before you send it to everyone.
• Set expectations. Let people know what, why, and how long the survey is.
• Keep people engaged. Be clear, but also be creative and original. 

Now that you know the highlights, it's time to dig into exactly what each of the experts had to say. You'll likely recognize some of these names. To learn more about them, you can click on their names and it will take you straight to their biographies at the end of this post.

Web Form Design Tips

Tim Ash

Most web forms ask for too much information too early in the process, which make web visitors/prospects either uncomfortable or impatient with filling them out. That’s why it’s best to reduce fields to include only those that are absolutely necessary for completing a transaction. Your first consideration for limiting form fields is context. For instance, it is completely fine for an e-commerce site to ask for a customer’s address if that is needed for shipping an order. But it doesn’t make that much sense to ask the same information for a web download or an online subscription. Another consideration is value: is your offer valuable enough that customers would want to give up that much personal information to get it? The point is, you need to limit form fields based on what’s absolutely essential and depending on the perceived value of your offer so as not to discourage visitors from completing the form-fill process.

Adam Audette

When programming custom forms, it shows love when the form auto-forwards when a field is completed. Small but important detail.

Lisa Barone

Remember this is a relationship and don't overstep by asking questions out of the scope of what you're trying to accomplish. If you don't need their phone number, don't ask for it. If there's no reason to hawk your newsletter, don't do it. Every question you ask costs you a small degree of trust with your visitor.

Kimberly Berg

Avoid forcing people to click on a tool tip to explain how to fill out a form field. Either put the format inside the field itself or offer examples in text beneath the field. If requiring a phone number, always provide a reason why. In addition, if the purpose is to call them back, request a good time to call and indicate their time zone.

Will Critchlow

If you are using multi-part forms over a number of pages, check out paditrack.com for help analysing drop-off rates at each stage (based on your Google Analytics data).

Rand Fishkin

Don't make people think! Build them short and simple, or not at all.

Elizabeth Harrin

Test your form on some colleagues first so you know if your questions are clear enough and generate the responses you want.

Jim Hedger

In some cases it is advantageous to allow Googlebot to crawl through simple forms on your pages. If a form on a high quality page leads to information Google is interested in, Googlebot will follow it, assuming it is coded as a form. You can block Googlebot from spidering through your forms or any documents accessed through your forms by using a robots.txt file, and noindex, nofollow tags.

Ian Lurie

If you use Google Analytics, set up an onClick event for each field in the form. That way, you can track abandonment rates and know which field causes the highest abandonment rate.

Peter Meyers

If you don't need it, don't ask it. I can't count how many times a critical conversion process was killed by marketing asking for a bunch of data that scared off customers and then sat in a pile. Job one is to make the sale. Job 1-1/2 is to make the customer happy. Your pet data is gravy at best.

Gillian Muessig

KISS, people! KISS! You really DON'T need all that info. You need the basics and can get more once you've come to know me.

Online Survey Design Tips

Tim Ash

It’s the same case with web surveys: they are either perceived as time-consuming or too difficult to fill out. Overcome objections by making sure that you present visitors with conceptually-unified information. Take care to reorder or split up fields into categories so visitors don’t think that your survey will take up a lot of their time and effort. You can also make web surveys seem less painful by adding progress bars, which tell them where they are in the survey flow and how much longer they need to complete the task.

Adam Audette

Best to keep surveys short, crisp, and to the point. Too many complicated or multi-faceted selections can hurt involvement.

Lisa Barone

Ask for information in creative ways to keep users engaged with the survey. Instead of asking to rate speakers, name them and ask who was better. Instead of using the same cold script everyone else does, inject some personality and make it a fun experience. Visitors will stick around and provide the information you want as long as you're giving them something for their efforts - sometimes that just means a chuckle.

Kimberly Berg

Never present them to first time users who have landed on a page for the first time. If it's longer than one question, indicate how many questions and how long the survey will take.

Will Critchlow

Send them to a smallish sample of people before hitting the "go live" button for real. Getting a handful of people to fill in your form will likely throw up confusions, misunderstandings and poorly-worded questions. Find out about these *before* you spend money or goodwill on real responses.

Rand Fishkin

Ask questions that are easy for your audience to answer. Use email or in-person interviews for more complex, open-ended feedback.

Elizabeth Harrin

Be sure to include a 'not applicable' answer option for your questions as oftentimes people will be stumped and not able to reply to the question at all. If you've made the question compulsory, they'll enter any old data and that will skew your results.

Jim Hedger

Use surveys on clients' or your own Facebook business pages. Everybody loves giving their opinion, especially if it only takes a couple seconds to do so. Facebook surveys tend to get good response and can be widely distributed quite quickly. As various measurements of social engagement are search signals, building engagement using surveys is a good and probably fun thing to do.

Ian Lurie

This one's obvious, but rarely practiced: Keep your survey under 2 minutes completion time.

Peter Meyers

Respect your visitors. Ask the questions that will help them, not the questions your committee agrees will make good fodder for the annual report. Focusing on 3-4 pieces of truly actionable data will increase response rates and provide real business value.

Gillian Muessig

WHAT you ask and HOW you ask it are one and the same thing. HOW you ask will severely impact the answers you get and the reactions to you and your business you generate. Be mindful of the impact of your choice of words.

The Web Form and Survey Experts

Tim Ash: SiteTuners, Inc.
CEO

Tim Ash is the CEO of SiteTuners, a leading conversion rate optimization agency and the author of the bestselling book Landing Page Optimization. He is chairperson of Conversion Conference and is a highly-regarded presenter at many leading conferences.

Adam Audette: RKG
Chief Knowledge Officer

As a passionate online marketer, Adam has worked with leading brands from Amazon to Zappos. He frequently speaks at events like SMX Advanced and Nation Association of Government Webmasters.

Lisa Barone: Overit
VP of Strategy

Lisa Barone is the Vice President of Strategy at Overit, a digital agency Redefining Creative through motion graphics, development, design, SEO/PPC, PR, content & social. Lisa is considered one inbound marketing's most gifted writers and brand managers.

Kimberly Berg: Internet Marketing Ninjas
Usability and User Experience Analyst

Kimberly Berg’s is a highly respected usability, testing, design, and SEO expert as well as a popular conference speaker. She is the founder of Cre8pc, recently acquired by Internet Marketing Ninjas where she serves on the executive management team.

Will Critchlow: Distilled
Founder

Will Critchlow co-founded Distilled in 2005. They provide online marketing services from offices in London, New York and Seattle, hosts the popular SearchLove conference series.. Will owns a share of a full cask of whisky he'll bottle in 2015.

Rand Fishkin: SEOmoz
CEO

CEO & founder of Moz, TAGFEE evangelist, passionate about all things inbound marketing.

Elizabeth Harrin: The Otobos Group
Director

Elizabeth wrote Social Media for Project Managers and Project Management in the Real World. Her new book, Shortcuts for Success: Project Management in the Real World, will be out later this year. She's an enthusiastic but slow crocheter.

Jim Hedger: Digital Always Media
Partner

A partner at Digital Always Media Jim hosts the weekly WebmasterRadio.FM show Webcology.

Ian Lurie: Portent
CEO

Founder & CEO of Portent. Internet marketer for 18 years. Yes, 18 years. No, it's not a mistake. Remember Prodigy? Compuserve?

Peter Meyers: SEOmoz
Marketing Scientist

Dr. Pete is a Cognitive Psychologist and resident Marketing Scientist at SEOmoz. He enjoys chasing the Google algorithm, chasing his two children, and chasing his work day with a nice glass of port.

Gillian Muessig: SEOmom

A co-founder of SEOmoz, Gillian speaks throughout the world on the subjects of Search, Tech, Startups, and Emerging Markets. She is an Angel Investor, a CEO coach at NewGen Broadcasting, mentor to dozens of startups, and Board member in companies in 4 continents.

To celebrate the release of Smartsheet’s smarter web forms we’re asking you to give our new features a test drive then tell us how you use Smartsheet web forms. You may win one of five American Express $100 gift cards!

Click Here to Enter Web Form Frenzy

Also, each weekday in May we’re offering example forms to inspire you and get you started. This week Smartsheet will present five new forms beginning with today's Benefits Enrollment Form. To get them, follow us on Twitter at @Smartsheet.

Last wek we shared:

• Job Application (see below)
• Customer Support
• Data Request
• Customer Feedback
• Mothers Day Brunch Signup (see below)

With the latest Smartsheet update, we added a new column type that gives you the ability to automatically keep track of certain data points like a “modified by” date or “created by” date – also known as System Columns.  

System Columns are really handy for instantaneously keeping track of certain data points. They immediately add certain types of data into your rows, tracking information like the date a new row was added, or the name of the person that last updated a row.  

This week, we want to give you some tips and tricks to customize one of these new System Columns – the Auto-Number Column, to fit your processes and streamline your collaboration.  

Automagic!  Using Auto-Number System Columns

Automatically adding a unique identifier to a row is helpful in so many different scenarios: requests for help, customer orders, maintenance updates... the list goes on.

You can use the Auto-Number column to assign a simple value (e.g. 1, 2, 3) to new row submissions. If you’d like to make this column a bit more powerful and specific to your processes, change the Display Format criteria to create a combination of numbers and letters that provide context for your unique process.

Here are some examples of how you could use the Auto-Number Column to help streamline your processes:

• Track Submissions by Quarter Looking to break sheet submissions down by quarter? An Auto-Number Column is perfect for this. At the beginning of the quarter, insert a Prefix value of “Q1-” in the column Display Format.  With this formatting updated, when new items are entered to your sheet, the Row ID will automatically include “Q1-” in front of a unique number.  When Q2 rolls around, all you need to do is update the Prefix from “Q1-” to “Q2-”.  

The unique numbers will continue, with the new quarter added as a prefix.  If you would like a new starting number at the beginning of each quarter, all you need to do is enter a Starting Number of “1” to the Starting Number field in the formatting form.

• Track Submissions by Date Another handy prefix for Auto-Number Columns: add a date prefix to the Auto-Number Column to combine an automated unique ID with the date.  In the prefix field, add “{MM}/{DD}/{YY} -”.  This specifies to append the date in MM/DD/YY format to the prefix before a unique ID number.

There are four other types of system-generated Columns to choose from, in addition to Auto-Number:

• Created (Date) This System Column is super handy for keeping track of the exact date and time that a row was created – GREAT to use with web forms!
• Created By Use this System Column to keep track of the email address of any collaborator who created a row.
• Modified (Date) Use this System Column to keep track of the last time a change was made to each row. 
• Modified By This System Column will automatically keep track of the email address for the last person who updated data in a row.

NOTE: For both ‘Modified (Date)’ and ‘Modified By’ columns, Discussion updates, new attachments, and formatting changes (like a different font color) are not logged in this column.

A few other handy things to know about the new System Columns in Smartsheet:

• Each type of System Column can only be used once in each sheet.
• The cells in System Columns start out empty, and will generate value as you and others input data and save your sheet.
• The values in System Columns are display-only.  You can adjust the formatting options for System Columns to adjust the appearance of these values.
• If you change an existing column in your sheet to a Modified Date/By or Created Date/By system column, you will overwrite any existing cell data you have in those columns.

What are your ideas for using System Columns to save time?  Let us know.

Til next week, dig in and explore!

- Support Team

Good ideas have a habit of arriving at inconvenient moments, usually when pen and paper are unavailable or using a keyboard is perilous. A technology I use to get around this is Apple iOS voice to text. On the iPhone, whenever you’re presented with a text box iOS almost always includes a microphone icon. That means, when you’re on the go, you can record a new idea with the same ease as conducting a Google voice search.

Until recently, I used a popular note taking application. Unfortunately, all my ideas were either mashed together as one big text file or separated into multiple files, one per recording. Organizing, collating, and making everything usable was tedious.

Then it struck me, I could use Smartsheet to capture my voice to text transcriptions in individual cells. I created a sheet and added a web form with only one field, a text box.

When I hit the submit button the form returns to itself, presenting a new place for another new idea or note.

I just took the form link from here,

And pasted it into the Send the user to this URL field.

I now had a loop.

Next, I opened the form in my iPhone’s Safari web browser and pressed the Send To button at the bottom of the screen.

Then I pressed the Add to Home Screen button.

Which added the form to my iPhone’s screen, just as though it were an app.

Now I can record and transcribe notes while on the go.

Then at my leisure, add categories and sort them.

Since I began doing this I haven’t even opened that popular note taking application I used to record into.

Here is one final thought. Stay safe. Don’t use this on the road. Using voice transcription still requires touching your screen. When you touch your screen you’re taking your eyes off the road.

This May, each weekday Smartsheet shares a new web form on out Twitter account. You can get these forms for yourself or take inspiration for your business, club, school or, well, who knows? You're limited only by the imagination. Here are last week's web forms:

• An HR Benefits Form
• A Sign-up Form for Bike to Work Week
• An Online Meeting Evaluation Survey
• A Form for Schools & Teachers to Gather Parent Info
• A Website Order Form

And be sure to follow @Smartsheet on Twitter.

“Bottom line, Smartsheet helps us make money,” explained Kyle Ball, owner of the Portland, Oregon-based Horizon Home Team, part of Mal & Seitz Real Estate Solutions. Smartsheet as a revenue generator? Do tell.

For the past two years, Ball and his team of real estate agents have been using Smartsheet to manage their sales processes.

“In 2012, our team of six was able to close 113 homes totaling $24 million in sales, landing in the top 5% of real estate teams in the area. Smartsheet is the heartbeat of our business and was critical to making those sales happen.”

For this team, the key benefits from using Smartsheet boil down to three components: 

• Keeping a handle on lead generation
• Visualizing the workflows for successfully closing leads 
• Effective team management 

Powerful Lead Management

“Our approach to lead generation is pretty tenacious,” explained Ball. “We advertise on a variety of online platforms where people come across our company information, whether on Zillow, Craigslist, or another online site where we offer a free list of homes and foreclosures. From here, potential new clients will give us their contact information via the IDX (Internet Database Exchange) system.”  

Then the lead information is put it into a master sheet of all leads and an agent specific sheet. “At this point, Smartsheet instantly notifies the agent that they have a new lead, and they can begin building a relationship right away.”

According to Ball, three Smartsheet features are key to lead gen success:

• Discussions
• Reminders
• Search

Ball and his agents keep diligent track of all of their communication with leads in Discussions. When a lead isn’t quite ready to commit, Ball and his agents set a Reminder to follow-up in the future. “These automated reminders are a lifesaver,” said Ball. “When the appropriate amount of time has passed, we get an email from our sheet, reminding us to check in and see how things have progressed since we’ve last spoken. It keeps our relationships strong, and helps us to connect with our clients when they are ready for us.”

“It’s incredible to see how our relationship with our clients have improved. We have an enormous amount of leads that come in every day, and some leads that I have on my sheet have been there for over a year. Circumstances can change quickly for buyers and sellers, and we need to be ready when they’re ready. At least once a week, I get a call from someone who’s ready to buy a house that I haven’t spoken with in months – and all I need to do is pull up the ‘Search’ function to quickly find my Discussion notes for that lead, and I’m set.”

Valuable Workflow Visualization

With all of this lead management tracked in Smartsheet, Ball and his team are able to collaborate on their formula for successful lead nurturing. Symbol Columns like checkboxes and drop-down lists help Ball and his team track both contact dates and type of contact, and also information like motivation to buy and whether or not leads are preapproved for a home loan.

“Putting our lead gen process in Smartsheet helps us document our successful processes. Getting all these variables down in an easily digestible spreadsheet view is really powerful, and has helped our team to grow quickly and learn from each other’s selling experience,” said Ball.

“Thanks to Smartsheet, we have really great systems in place to catch all of the lead information that comes in and then act on it. Nothing falls through the cracks. Plus, it’s all in the cloud, so my agents can update their sheets anywhere, any time - which is critical when you’re in real estate.”

Effective Team Management

Ball’s team consists of six seasoned, highly mobile agents. “We’re incredibly busy and putting in a lot of face-time with our clients,” said Ball. “I have my own clients too, so I’m not a full-time manager. But I still need to know what my team is doing on a daily basis.”

Rather than schedule multiple check-ins throughout the day, Ball automates a daily email from Smartsheet that summarizes his agents’ activity from the previous day.  “As part of my morning routine now, I read through all of the emails to get a sense of where my agents are with their leads."

“Daily phone calls just aren’t sustainable,” explained Ball, “More than that, they’re not realistic for our company. The team is composed of some of the best, most experienced agents in the area, and they don’t need to be micro-managed.  By using Smartsheet to keep track of their activity, I’m able to manage without being heavy handed or overbearing, and I can still provide support and help when it is needed.”

Using these steps for success, Ball and the Horizon Home Team are on track for their most successful year yet.

This one’s for all the Team accounts out there: SysAdmins, we have some words of wisdom for you! We’re dedicating this week’s blog to helping Team account leaders get the most out of User Management tools.

Before jumping into our tips for mastering the management of your Team account in Smartsheet, here are some basic User Management terms to help you get started.

• Sheet Creator: This is a user with an assigned license, who can create his/her own sheets.
• Collaborator: This is anyone who can access and update data on sheets as a Viewer, Editor, or Admin, but they cannot create their own sheet.
• User: The user refers to any person you have granted Smartsheet access to, with or without a license (both Sheet Creators and Collaborators).
• Admin: This is a permission level that relates only to sharing an individual sheet. This permission lets a Collaborator work with a sheet with the same rights as the Sheet Creator (Learn more about the different Sharing permissions).
• SysAdmin: The SysAdmin is a role specific to Team plans. As a SysAdmin, you are in charge of administrating your Smartsheet Team account including purchasing new licenses (adding more Sheet Creators), removing licenses or users, and bulk transferring sheets from one user’s account to another.

Here are four tips to go beyond these basics and take full advantage of User Management:

Tip #1: Go the extra mile! Add licensed users AND collaborators to your Team account.

We talk with a lot of SysAdmins who mainly focus on adding licensed users to their Team accounts. It’s well worth it to add Collaborators, too. When Collaborators are added to the User Management form, you can monitor when they have logged in, help them with password reset issues, or remove sharing permissions if they leave the company.

Tip #2: Two SysAdmins are better than one.

SysAdmins are powerful leaders of your Smartsheet Team account: they are the only users authorized to add or remove licenses, upgrade your account, change your billing options, download receipts, or cancel your account. As a backup method, add a second SysAdmin. Now you’re covered if you go on vacation or don’t have internet access for a period of time. 

Tip #3: Lend a helping hand.

Has someone on your team forgotten their password?  While anyone with a Smartsheet account can reset their password from our password reset page, SysAdmins can also help out. To initiate a colleague’s password reset, right-click (or ctrl+click) on the user’s name in the User Management form and select Send Password Reset Mail.  For users that don’t log in often, this is a great first troubleshooting step.

When you add new licensed users to your Team account, you can monitor their progress as they activate and jump into their account. The ‘Status’ column in the User Management form will update from ‘Invited’ to ‘Active’ when they begin to use their Smartsheet account. Sometimes the invitation to become a part of your Team account as a licensed user gets lost in Spam folders. You can resend this invitation email by right-clicking on their name.  

Tip #4: Know your collaborators. 

As a SysAdmin, you have the tools to review some activity within your team’s account: Login History, Download User List, Sheet Access Report, and Remove Email from Sharing.

• Monitor your team’s activity in Smartsheet by accessing the Login History in your Account Administration tools.
• If you need a quick list of your users, you can download the User List by clicking on ‘More Actions’ in the User Management form.
• Use the Sheet Access Report for internal team management, external monitoring, and making sure your sheets are current. Learn more about using the Sheet Access Report.
• Update the sharing permissions that have been set on sheets and Remove Email from Sharing.  This option removes a collaborator’s access to any particular sheet.

That should get you started! If you’re interested in more specifics about managing users in your Smartsheet Team account as a SysAdmin, this article from our Help Center has more details.

Til next week, dig in and explore.

- Support Team

From contributing writer, Robert Kelly, PMP: It's not uncommon to end up as a project manager through practical experience.  Chances are you're doing the things that have always worked for you, made your teams successful, and earned you promotions - without ever reading a book on project management or completing a certification course.  

What you may not know is that there is some basic project management knowledge and terminology that is very useful when working with other certified Project Management Professionals. Having some basic project management knowledge is worth it. It might even help you become better organized and lead you to yet another promotion.

Basic Blocking and Tackling

Let's cover some basic blocking and tackling of project management. If you read my last post, Winning Takes Care of Everything, you know I am not a fan of process for process sake. I do, however, believe in the necessity for project frameworks and understand there are a few key elements (tools, processes, techniques) that project managers must leverage to repeatedly deliver successful projects.

Specifically, I want to cover the Work Breakdown Structure, the Project Schedule, and the Project Plan. Many project managers use these incorrectly and interchangeably when they should not.

Work Breakdown Structure

Every project has a few core requirements. They are usually expressed as high-level deliverables. The work breakdown structure is a process—an actual form or document—in which the project managers, subject matter experts, and the team break large deliverables into smaller chunks or tasks. This can be somewhat compared to a sprint in the Agile world. Breaking large deliverables into smaller, more addressable parts allows project managers to better organize efforts, align resources more effectively and track progress with greater precision. A lot of project managers skip this because they believe it is tedious and don’t want to feel they are micromanaging. You must fight that impulse and realize it is tremendously effective for developing an accurate project schedule.

Project Schedule

As an output of the work breakdown structure, your team must be able to identify the resources required, dependencies in-place and time needed to complete each task. With this information, the project manager can develop a project schedule the team can review and support.

Your project schedule is basically the list of tasks with a start and end dates, assigned to team members, and any respective dependencies.

A key point to remember is that the project schedule is a living document; it must be reviewed and updated throughout the project. A dependency may get removed, allowing other tasks to start sooner or some team members may become ill, pushing their task finish dates further out. Even with the best planning and collaboration, things happen. Make sure your project schedule reflects the actual and current reality of the project.

Project Plan

The project plan can be likened to an operations manual which describes the execution, management and control of each project aspect. Often confused with the project schedule, the PMBOK Guides and Standards definition of a project plan is,

...a formal, approved document used to guide both project execution and project control. The primary uses of the project plan are to document planning assumptions and decisions, facilitate communication among stakeholders, and document approved scope, cost, and schedule baselines.

Here are a few elements a project plan should include:

• Requirements Management
• Schedule Management
• Financial Management
• Communications Management
• Change Management
• Quality Management
• Procurement Management

Have managers or teams document procedures for their respective areas. Examples might include requesting changes, how funds are approved or released, and how project updates get communicated. Ultimately, should you need to leave, a new project manager ought to be able to read the project plan and pick up where you left.

Learn Project Management Basics

In many offices no one will notice or care if you call the project schedule a project plan. But, as your organization grows or depending on whom you work with, such as formally trained project managers, such gaffes may create confusion. If you work with certified project managers or PMBOK followers, it might even cost you some professional credibility. Learn these basic items and get them down. Leverage them on every project. Think of it as grammar for project management. It may not always seem important, but when you get called on an error it may feel rather awkward.

Author Robert Kelly, PMP is a contributing writer to the Smartsheet blog. He is the managing partner of Kelly Project Solutions and  co-founder of #PMChat, a community of project and program managers.

Today marks the release of version 1.2 of our native iOS app for Smartsheet.  Apple users will get into the app and get their work done even faster than before with this latest update.  We’ve made the grid more interactive, attachments & discussions easier to work with, and eliminated up to 40% of the “taps” it takes to edit a row.

We’re really proud of these changes and I’ll describe them in more detail below, but first I’d like to talk about Smartsheet’s commitment to mobile and where we see the space going. 

And, I’ll show a peek at the native Android app coming this summer.

I'm Erik Rucker and I joined Smartsheet at the end of February, just as we were releasing version 1.1 of Smartsheet for iOS.  I came from 20+ years at Microsoft, largely spent building Office and most recently shipping Mac Office 2011, OneNote for iPhone & iPad, Mac Lync, and more. 

I came to Smartsheet because I loved the product and the opportunity, and because I knew the company was making a big commitment to mobile. 

It was clear that the key to executing on that commitment was hiring and I’m thrilled with the progress we’ve made.  We’ve hired three new full-time mobile developers in the last two months and have a significant portion of the Android app running and a significant part of iOS 1.3 already built. 

Oh, and that third mobile developer hasn’t even started yet!

Mobile Roadmap

The long-term mobile plan is easy to describe: beautiful full-featured mobile apps that make using Smartsheet rock wherever you are.  Apps available on the platforms you want, that will provide the features you need.  They will elegantly blend the Smartsheet experience you’re used to with the platform specific look and feel you expect.  Simple.

Getting there is hard but still not that complicated. 

The first big stop is clearly Android. 

The Android app is tracking well to a summer release and will be closer to “mid” than “late” summer.  Here’s what it looks like today (please note that the artwork is whatever we had at hand – it will be far better looking when we ship):

Following this initial Android version, we’ll ship a series of releases adding more power to both the iOS and Android applications. 

We're getting close!  Sign up here to be the first to know when Smartsheet is available on Android.

We’re working hard to help you accomplish even more with Smartsheet on your phone or tablet and have some great things on the way this year.

iOS 1.2 New Features

Today’s release brings three new things:

• Polished Interface – we’ve updated the app’s UI to make it faster to find your data and to make the changes you need.  You can now tap on a row in the Grid view to open it directly:
  
  If you Press & Hold on a row in the List view, you can jump directly to edit or can insert a new row above it:
  
  And Discussions and Attachments are now much easier to access:
  
• Single Sign On – users can now use their corporate accounts to log into Smartsheet.
• Extensive API usage – now that the API has shipped, we’ve moved the iOS app to communicate with Smartsheet through the API.  This will make it faster to bring features to mobile and provides a great way for us to verify the API.

We’re proud of this version of Smartsheet for iOS, but even more than that, we’re really excited about the growth of the team and the new tools on the way.  Stay tuned!

- Erik Rucker
Director of Mobile

We love organizing data and information – and since Smartsheet is flexible and customizable, you have the freedom to set up your work however you choose. Today we’re going to roll out of the sheets and step into another feature that is helpful for organizing your data: reports.  

Reports give you the ability to quickly look across multiple sheets for certain criteria.  For example, use a report to find all the items that are assigned to you or anything that isn’t complete.  Once you’ve created your report, you can share it with others, just like a sheet.

Some Quick Reporting Basics

• To create a new report, click the “New” tab near the top of your screen, then select ‘Blank Report.’  The Report Builder form will appear.  Use this form to customize your report.  

• After you’ve created your report, it automatically runs each time you open it.  To trigger the report yourself, click the Run button in the Report Builder.

• You can share reports with others just like you share sheets.

• In order for collaborators to access your reports, they must be shared the source sheet, too.

Rockstar Tip:We frequently recommend to customers that they use the Reporting feature when they need to review and edit rows from multiple sheets in one central spot.  Handy!  

Reports can be used for more than just consolidating certain data in one spot.  There are no limits to the number of reports you can create – so configure away!  Here are two different scenarios get help jumpstart your thinking about creative ways to use reports.

Reports to Sort Info

As an alternative to sorting columns within your sheets, use reports to set sort criteria.  Once you’ve set up the sort just so, each time you run the report, the rows will be automatically sorted based on your criteria.  This includes new data that has been changed or added to your sheets since the last time the report ran.  

This report will help you to see all the most important elements across all of your sheets.  You’ll also be able to review the sorted data in your report without affecting the order of rows in your actual sheets.

Let’s go through an example. Say I want to sort a ‘Priority’ column in descending alphabetical order.  Each time the report is run, the Urgent tasks will be listed right at the top of the report.

As a first step, create and run a report – then you’ll see the option to Sort to rows in your sheet.

After this first time you run your report, you’ll see Not Sorted at the top of the Report Builder.

Click Not Sorted to select a column from your sheet to sort by.  Then, the report will automatically run and sort itself after you select the sort criteria.  In this example, we’re sorting columns by ‘Priority,’ shown below:

Reports to Customize Columns for Different Collaborators

Within a sheet, you can choose to hide or display columns.  Hidden columns are hidden from all collaborators – and displayed columns displayed to everyone.  It’s helpful to hide columns when you want to consolidate the information displayed to your collaborators.

Want to tailor the view of information more specifically than this “all or nothing”?  

Reports are a great tool to use when you want to display different information to different collaborators.  

Here's an example.  Executives may only be interested in a task name and the date it’s completed.  The project manager may want to see tasks that aren’t assigned to team members so that they can be assigned an owner.  Team members working on all tasks will need to be able to see all of the columns in a sheet so they have a full picture of what everyone is working on and where progress needs to be made.  

In this scenario, you wouldn’t want to hide columns in your sheet from team members and different stakeholders.

Start by pulling up the Report Builder.  Then use the Columns button to select which columns from the sheet(s) you’d like included in the report.  

Create as many reports as necessary to distill different views of your sheet information to share with various team members and stakeholders.

Rockstar Tip: Send your report to recipients as an Attachment on an automated, recurring basis.  Regular reminders make it even easier to regularly check in on data.  

You can also use this method to send yourself regular snapshots of your data and projects as an offline resource.  Learn more about Sharing and Sending Reports.

Take some time to toss around different ways to use reports to work with your data – you’re sure to discover other time saving techniques and organizational approaches.

Til next week, dig in and explore!

- Support Team

Last month, I was talking with Jon Ruzicka a lifelong friend from Grangeville, Idaho, who is now a public high school principal. We were trading stories in our relative fields of interest - collaborative software and primary education. Along the way, we stumbled on an opportunity to use our individual strengths to make a difference.

We’d commiserated that Math and English, the fundamental building blocks for critical thinking and communication, aren't engaging kids enough. And how important critical thinking and clear communication skills are in today's digital workforce.

Subsequently, we moved on to boasting about our accomplishments. Jon crowing about how his district was overcoming typical administrative hurdles to effect real progress in real time, and me broadcasting that Smartsheet software can coordinate virtually anything.

And, then Jon did what a former math teacher, football coach, now high school principal is apt to do.  He said, "Let’s put our money where our mouths are and coordinate a better outcome in the classrooms."

That was it.  Two 6'7" over-the-hill athletes staring at a gauntlet laid squarely between them.

It took about 40 seconds to conclude that the secret sauce is in the quality and passion of the individual teacher. So, how to get more teachers to inspire their students in these subjects?

The Smartsheet Inspirational Teacher Award

To make this happen within 2 weeks (kids were out of school in 4 weeks), we had to:

1. Enable collection of student nominations.So, we set up a Smartsheet and created a web form. This took about 15 minutes.
2. Get the web form link and instructions out to the students. In a matter of hours, a very efficient Jennifer Henderson, Executive Director of Boise Public Schools Education Foundation, and Steve Higgins, Grangeville High School’s Principal, had crafted and distributed the nomination form to students via email.
3. Judge the submissions and award the prizes. With all the data automatically flowing into Smartsheet, it took no time for the judges to review and evaluate the nominations.

In less than two weeks and based on student nominations, today we awarded $25,000. These five teachers each were awarded a $5,000 grant:

• Paula Uriarte, Capital High School (Boise) 
• Greg Hoetker, Timberline High School (Boise)
• Barb James, Kuna High School (Kuna)
• Matt Elven, Grangeville High School (Grangeville)
• Tate Castleton, Canyon Springs High School (Caldwell)

Congratulations to the winning teachers - our hats are off to you!

- Brent

PS: Having never run a program like this in the past, I think it’s interesting to note what we learned:

• Teachers and administrators (and students) are thrilled to have support from the community. Whether it’s helping building a new playground, supporting an auction, or in our case - giving them cash to further pursue their efforts – they get really fired up (giddy almost) that someone cares.
• Find a team that embraces your vision. There are probably some questions about why we focused on Boise over our local Seattle/Bellevue communities, but here’s the quick answer: We tried contacting both of the major local school districts in our back yard and never heard back. Enter the Boise Public School Education Foundation. They jumped on the opportunity immediately and were critical in getting it done.
• Keep it simple. From your tools to your process, don’t create unnecessary steps and barriers between your goal and your desired outcome. We organized the entire program in Smartsheet, including creating the web form for the students to nominate their teachers, collecting and organizing their submissions, and taking action to select winners in a matter of days.

Having started several companies, I know first hand that one of the most important factors in a company’s success is the quality of the employees. Hiring exceptional people with stellar communication and critical thinking skills is part of our recipe for success here at Smartsheet. Regardless of your size or mission, bright employees are vital to growth and innovation. Teachers who inspire and challenge students are a crucial piece, they are where these skills all begin.

And now the challenge. How about a few more organizations get in on this effort? As our politicians and government leaders wrestle with education reform on the state and federal levels, we all should do what we can to impact positive change in our public schools. It’s in our best interests as employers to ensure the students have exceptional educational experiences. Our companies, our communities, and our world depends on it.

It doesn’t take a committee. It doesn’t take months. It takes wanting to get it done.