Calendar App - Filters...why did you change the functionality...now...during a Pandemic?!?!?

Kyle Morgan
Kyle Morgan ✭✭✭✭✭
edited 06/14/22 inAdd Ons and Integrations

Smartsheet,

Before I lose my mind, here... please tell me that there is (at the very least) a way for individual users to create filters without being shared to the underlying sheet. Up until this change, our users were able to access the calendar and manually select the criteria that they wished to view via multiple, extremely long, lists of options.

I now have an entire staff of over 150 people trying to sort through a calendar...from home...during a global health crisis...and now they are unable to even create their own filters!

This latest change has, essentially rendered this Premium add-on totally worthless to me.

What on Earth possessed you to launch this change NOW?!?!?!?

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  • Jodi Rosenberg
    Jodi Rosenberg ✭✭

    I have to second this. Now even as an owner of a calendar I can not filter. I own others and they are working fine for me, but one is not.

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  • Kyle Morgan
    Kyle Morgan ✭✭✭✭✭

    So, I can assume by the silence here that there is no way to allow users to create their own filters without being shared to the underlying sheet.

    Basically, this (paid) add-on is of little use to me now. Or, can I assume that Smartsheet will be rolling out an exciting "enhancement" in the months to come that will now allow users that are not shared to the underlying document to create their own, exciting filters...at a cost, of course.

    insert boilerplate response : "Perhaps I should submit a product enhancement request".

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  • Jeffrey Brooks
    Jeffrey Brooks ✭

    Third this.

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  • Genevieve P.
    Genevieve P. Employee Admin

    Hi Kyle,

    Anyone shared to the Calendar can still create filters, even if they are not shared to the underlying sheet:

    • 用户可以创建和share filters that will be visible to anyone with access to the calendar.
    • Anyone shared to the calendar will be able to create private filters and use or copy shared filters.

    (Here's theHelp Center article on Filtersthat outlines this.)

    If your users are not shared to the calendar but are instead using a published link to view the content, as the Calendar owner you can set up specific filters for them to use. Make sure that you have checked the box that allows the filter to besharedand it will be visible in the published link.

    @Jodi RosenbergIf you're finding that you are unable to filter on one specific calendar from within the Calendar app, pleasereach out to our Support Teamso they can look into this with you.

    Thank you,

    Genevieve

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  • Kyle Morgan
    Kyle Morgan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Well, this certainly is strange. I checked with the team this morning and users are now reporting the ability to create filters where they were previously unable.All users are shared to the calendars. They are not shared via published links.

    这些相同的用户也报告被踢出their calendars at approx 4pm (PST) yesterday, rec'ing a message stating that their "session has timed-out" - I rec'd the same message while working in a calendar. We all had to log out of the Calendar App and Smartsheet proper and then log back in in order to gain access to the calendars. I, myself had to attempt the log in multiple times before the connection was re-established. None of us had never encountered this behavior before.

    Once again, this is certainly strange. But, we are currently living in a strange time so I won't try to figure out what happened. But, you may want to pass this information on to your support team as I specifically stated to one of your team that I was disappointed that Smartsheet "effectively removed the ability, for users that are shared to the calendar(s) (and that are not shared to the underlying Smartsheet docs) the ability to create their own filters." I went on to state that "our users need the ability to create their own filters - without being granted access to the underlying sheet".

    I received no reply or confirmation from this associate that I was misinformed or incorrect and that users CAN create their own filters. Instead, the only thing that I was offered was: "I can imagine any change in your processes and workflows on top of everything else that is happening right now being very frustrating." - Really? Do you think so? I am not going to go any deeper into that one.

    The important thing is for me to not try and figure out what happened here and to just go with it.

    So, Thank you, Genevieve.

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  • Genevieve P.
    Genevieve P. Employee Admin

    Hi Kyle,

    Thank you for updating us! I'm glad that the filter functionality is back up and running for all of your colleagues.

    That certainly is very strange - I can't see anything logged on ourStatus pagefor what caused the timeout error, and I apologize for any disruption to your work. If it happens again, please do report it to our Support team. I will also pass your feedback along to our team, thank you.

    Cheers,

    Genevieve

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Sounds about right. Are you looking for some kind of guidance on a specific issue?<\/p>"}]}},"status":{"statusID":3,"name":"Accepted","state":"closed","recordType":"discussion","recordSubType":"question"},"bookmarked":false,"unread":false,"category":{"categoryID":343,"name":"Add Ons and Integrations","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/categories\/apps-and-integrations","allowedDiscussionTypes":["discussion","question"]},"reactions":[{"tagID":3,"urlcode":"Promote","name":"Promote","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":5,"count":0},{"tagID":5,"urlcode":"Insightful","name":"Insightful","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":1,"count":0},{"tagID":11,"urlcode":"Up","name":"Vote Up","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":1,"count":0},{"tagID":13,"urlcode":"Awesome","name":"Awesome","class":"Positive","hasReacted":false,"reactionValue":1,"count":0}],"tags":[]},{"discussionID":104380,"type":"question","name":"Questions about Bridge from a potential newbie","excerpt":"We are considering upgrading to Advance, and I have questions about Bridge capabilities: Our project blueprint includes multiple reports that pull entries from master logs based on the job number. This means that our admins have to add the job number to every single new report filter when they set up a project. Can Bridge…","snippet":"We are considering upgrading to Advance, and I have questions about Bridge capabilities: Our project blueprint includes multiple reports that pull entries from master logs based…","categoryID":343,"dateInserted":"2023-04-24T16:40:19+00:00","dateUpdated":"2023-04-24T17:41:23+00:00","dateLastComment":"2023-08-10T13:32:30+00:00","insertUserID":126351,"insertUser":{"userID":126351,"name":"Julie Fortney","title":"","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/Julie%20Fortney","photoUrl":"https:\/\/aws.smartsheet.com\/storageProxy\/image\/images\/u!1!hZje4WgcMyQ!en9eZ1QFHfo!MFtz_rjuwYj","dateLastActive":"2023-08-11T13:16:34+00:00","banned":0,"punished":0,"private":false,"label":"✭✭✭✭✭✭"},"updateUserID":126351,"lastUserID":157551,"lastUser":{"userID":157551,"name":"joaolima","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/joaolima","photoUrl":"https:\/\/aws.smartsheet.com\/storageProxy\/image\/images\/u!1!wjEmP-PDuHo!29cn_0Oa5bo!j4rsSRTRcJb","dateLastActive":"2023-08-13T22:58:07+00:00","banned":0,"punished":0,"private":false,"label":"✭✭"},"pinned":false,"pinLocation":null,"closed":false,"sink":false,"countComments":6,"countViews":267,"score":null,"hot":3374032369,"url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/discussion\/104380\/questions-about-bridge-from-a-potential-newbie","canonicalUrl":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/discussion\/104380\/questions-about-bridge-from-a-potential-newbie","format":"Rich","tagIDs":[369],"lastPost":{"discussionID":104380,"commentID":390004,"name":"Re: Questions about Bridge from a potential newbie","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/discussion\/comment\/390004#Comment_390004","dateInserted":"2023-08-10T13:32:30+00:00","insertUserID":157551,"insertUser":{"userID":157551,"name":"joaolima","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/profile\/joaolima","photoUrl":"https:\/\/aws.smartsheet.com\/storageProxy\/image\/images\/u!1!wjEmP-PDuHo!29cn_0Oa5bo!j4rsSRTRcJb","dateLastActive":"2023-08-13T22:58:07+00:00","banned":0,"punished":0,"private":false,"label":"✭✭"}},"breadcrumbs":[{"name":"Home","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/"},{"name":"Get Help","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/categories\/get-help"},{"name":"Add Ons and Integrations","url":"https:\/\/community.smartsheet.com\/categories\/apps-and-integrations"}],"groupID":null,"statusID":3,"attributes":{"question":{"status":"accepted","dateAccepted":"2023-04-26T14:21:28+00:00","dateAnswered":"2023-04-26T02:30:08+00:00","acceptedAnswers":[{"commentID":373252,"body":"

Hey @Julie Fortney<\/a> <\/p>

I'll answer what I can and shout out to @Brian_Richardson<\/a> for back up. <\/p>

#1 Report Filters- To my knowledge there isn't a direct Report Filter update however I wondered if the column was a dropdown list - if so, Bridge can update dropdown lists and if the filter was set to select all it made me wonder if the filter would pick it up new selections. (Datashuttle also updates dropdown lists if this method works)<\/p>

#2 I've had problems with a slow sheet erroring out in Bridge. The sheet was massive and Bridge would time-out. Bridge did not help this sheet (it might have been too large for anything to help)<\/p>

#3 -I don't have any experience with Control Center, so sorry, I can't answer those questions<\/p>

My fav Bridge solutions?<\/p>

-Capturing Approver Names in approval workflows<\/p>

-Adding rows - same sheet, different sheets, Child rows to Parents, On a weekly cadence, Adding New rows of acquired data to a status update sheet which feeds into a dashboard report<\/p>

-Translating Employee Ideas from their native tongue to English<\/p>

-Checking FedEx Tracking Status on a sheet's worth of shipments<\/p>

I hope this helps<\/p>

Kelly<\/p>"},{"commentID":373322,"body":"

Hey @Julie Fortney<\/a> !<\/p>

  1. In general you cannot update reports with bridge or the API, you can only get report information and details. So unless you are able to come up with a different solution you may be out of luck. Although, if this is a control center program, you may be able to use \"Dynamic Reports\" which adds new sheets to reports every time a project is provisioned (and removes as projects are archived). <\/li>
  2. Maybe using JavaScript in bridge would help, hard to say. <\/li>
  3. Unfortunately not.. You can not programmatically retrieve a form link (Big functionality gap in my opinion). We have begged Smartsheet to dynamically update forms with control center. Also you can not update the contents of widgets in dashboards with bridge or the api.<\/li>
  4. You could definitely set up a solution to achieve this. It would involve using a summary sheet in your blueprint where the link to your template sheets is profile data on your summary sheet. From there you can get the sheet id for each project in bridge, loop through them and make updates.<\/li><\/ol>"},{"commentID":373373,"body":"

    @Kelly Moore<\/a> thanks for the shout out :-) but I'm not sure I can help more than what's already been posted. <\/p>

    @Julie Fortney<\/a> in general Bridge is an API tool. You can setup multi-branched workflows in Bridge with pre-set API calls and utilities. You can also do custom HTTP calls to any API that you have access to in the cloud. So anything you can do with API calls you can do with Bridge. It also, importantly, allows you to run Javascript code using the results of your API calls, and to trigger workflows on changes to Smartsheet content or on any other webhook that you can receive from other tools.<\/p>

    There's a fair amount of Smartsheet API methods that are prebuilt into Bridge, but not all of them. So if you're looking at the Bridge documentation for Smartsheet<\/a> integrations and not finding what you need, you can also look at the Smartsheet API documentation<\/a> to see if there's something there to help you out. If you find an API method to use that's not already pre-built as an integration, then you can use the Custom HTTP Call step to directly call the API. You just have to provide the Smartsheet API with an API token, which you can assign to yourself in your Personal Settings.<\/p>

    It looks like your specific questions were answered pretty comprehensively by Kelly and Samuel but here's my 2c:<\/p>

    1. Because you cannot adjust report filters using the Smartsheet API, you cannot do this with Bridge. Here's the Reports methods<\/a>. You might want to consider a workaround for the process of having reports hand-updated with new job numbers. Perhaps leverage a creation date or flag new items with a checkbox that's cleared once the conditions are met that would cause the project to fall back off the report? You can also explore the \"contact has any of current user\" filter to pick up specific jobs for the viewer?<\/li>
    2. You could definitely use Bridge to read one sheet on a schedule or trigger, perform calculations using Javascript or the included utilities, and post the results. It may be faster and more stable than a huge number of formulas in Smartsheet, but I'm not 100% sure it would be. I would probably first explore using Data Mesh, which is setup to do this in a much more friendly way. If you don't already use Data Mesh, it's basically a batch index\/match tool. <\/li>
    3. As Samuel said, there's no API for updating widgets on a dashboard or retrieving a form URL. Also, I tested copying a dashboard and sheet in a common folder, where the form link was embedded in the dash, and unfortunately it does not update the form link. Seems like a gap and would be a good enhancement request. You could potentially work around this by having a common sheet with the form to capture entries, have a dropdown in that form for the project name that you can keep updated with Bridge, do a lookup to the sheet ID that the entry should go to on a sheet that Bridge maintains, and then copy the form responses into the individual project sheets using Bridge. I know that's pretty roundabout.<\/li>
    4. As Samuel and Kelly said, you can push dropdown updates through Bridge, it works better than Data Shuttle. You wouldn't need to maintain a separate lookup sheet though, if you create a report that contains the dropdown columns across your various created sheets, and then read that report with Bridge, the return from the API includes the source sheet ID and column ID for each report row. You can then leverage that to point Bridge at the right columns across your sheets without having to maintain a separate lookup.<\/li><\/ol>

      At Iron Mountain we use Bridge for a variety of use cases, here's the most effective ones:<\/p>

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