FAQ: Smartsheet forms

Sheet Owners or Admins can create forms.

You can create forms with a Smartsheet Trial, but you can't share them.

Business and Enterprise plans have additional branding and security options. 

Depending on the security settings of the form, anyone can fill out a form, and your form submitters don't need a Smartsheet account or login. 
 
Some form features, like offline submission, barcode scanning, and geolocation, are only available via the Smartsheet mobile app. Submitters need to create a Smartsheet login in order to use the app.

If you'd like to further limit who can fill out a form, you can try one of the following:

• Add a Form password column to your sheet, make that field the first field in your form, and add conditional logic to the form so that you have to enter the right password to see the rest of the questions in the form.
• Embed the form on a dashboard in a web content widget and share that dashboard with your desired collaborators.
• Work with your IT department to embed the form on a webpage that already restricts access.

Form submissions are stored in the sheet. Anyone with access to the sheet can view form submissions directly on the sheet, find the form in search results, or copy and share the form's link.

There are three ways in which you can access forms:

Search 

Open the Search icon on the left rail and search your form by name.

Forms menu

In your sheet, select Forms > Manage Forms…

Workspaces

Open the Workspace panel and find your forms under their associated sheet to perform any of the following actions:

• See, select, and load the form
• From the Form menu within the workspace panel:
  • Open the form in a new tab with the published form URL
  • Copy the published form URL directly from the workspace
  • Select Edit to open up the form in builder mode

Form submissions are stored in the sheet. Any other user who has Admin access to the sheet that the form is associated with can edit your form.

• Order your fields in a way that makes sense and remove the fields that don't need data. 
• Add form-specific field labels or instructions, so people know exactly what information to provide. 
• Include validation to help the person provide correct data.
• Consider using default values or query parameters to pre-fill certain fields.
• Use conditional logic to control when to show a field.

If you want to show specific dropdown values based on the value of another field, create a different column for each set of dropdown values.

• ​​​​Mark a field as required if you don't want someone to submit the form without providing a value.
• Ensure consistent data collection by restricting field inputs (dropdowns/dates/checkboxes) or adding data validation.
• You can have more than one form on a sheet. This is useful if you want a different message for each audience, but want to gather the data into one place. 
• Use conditional logic and/or query parameters to re-use the same form in different scenarios. 
• To collect data without the form user seeing or changing it, add a default value or pre-fill it with a query parameter and hide the field.

If you're on a Business plan or above, you can use your logo, your colors, and your imagery to customize a form. See Customize the appearance of a form.

Add a system Created date column to your sheet to automatically capture when the form was filled out and a new row was created.

Form submissions are anonymous by default. To capture who is filling out your form, create a contact column (without any pre-filled values), make it required, and add email data validation.
 
Alternatively, consider adding a system Created by column to your sheet and changing form security to require Smartsheet login to automatically capture who fills out the form. Note that you can't retroactively capture who filled out the form prior to changing this security setting.
 

As a reminder, users logging in to Smartsheet to fill out your form don't need to be a part of your organization's Smartsheet plan or have an account.

Even if you require a login to fill out the form, submitters don't have access to the data included in your underlying sheet unless they're also shared to that sheet.

Automated workflows can send emails to contacts in your sheet at key points in time, such as when a form submission creates a row in your sheet or when additional information is needed based on what was submitted. 
 
To use a notification or request workflow together with a form, you need to gather the email address of the person who filled out the form as a contact value during the submission. 
 
There are two ways to gather this data:

1. Set up a Contact column and have the user provide their email address with email validation.
2. Add a Created By system column to your sheet and change the form security to require the user to sign in. 
    

If you're not sharing the form submitter to your sheet, you need to set the automation permissions to unrestricted. 

To include a unique ID in your emails, add an Auto Number column to your sheet and include that in your automated emails.
 

You're not just limited to emails!

Newly created rows from forms can trigger automated workflows to immediately assign task owners, move or copy rows to other sheets, kick off an approval cycle, automatically generate a document, and more. See: Action blocks: Specify what kind of automation is triggered.

Formulas in the underlying sheet can populate additional data in the same row as a form submission. Note that the form needs to be submitted first, then the formula can calculate in the sheet's row. 
 
For example, your form nominates employees for an award. One of your fields is a contact to nominate. Users submitting the form may not know the nominee's manager, but you need that information when it comes time to picking a winner. 
 
In this instance, you could have another reference sheet with all employees listed in one column and their managers listed in a second column. Then you could use an INDEX(MATCH combination as a column formula to automatically return the manager in your sheet. 

1. Choose whether new form submissions are added to the top or bottom of your sheet from the Settings tab. See: Manage form display and submission options. 
2. Create a row report using the form submission sheet as the source. You can work directly from the report and use the sheet as a data repository.  
   
   In the report, you can either group related form submissions together or use the sort feature, ensuring new rows automatically appear in the correct grouping or sort order. 

No access to any data
Adjust your form settings: By default, the form allows submitters to cc themselves in a response. Users can check this box and add their email to get a copy of what they submitted, along with the questions in the form. As the form creator, you can turn off this feature. See: Manage form display and submission options. 

View-only access to specific data
Publish a row report: Create a row report and limit what columns and rows your users can view.
 
Editor access to specific data
Update requests: You can set up an update request workflow to request changes to a row after the initial form submission. This is a good way to collaborate with people who shouldn't be shared to the sheet. 
 
Dynamic View: If you have a security concern for them to see other rows or columns, set up Dynamic View. 
 
Row report in a WorkApp: You can include reports in a WorkApp without collaborators needing access to the underlying sheet. 
 
Access to all data
Share the sheet where form submissions are collected, or publish the sheet for users who don't have a Smartsheet account. 

Data (including attachments) submitted through Smartsheet forms is encrypted end-to-end. Smartsheet uses industry-standard protections against XSS and SQL injection, and restricts users from uploading executable files. 

Once the data is in the sheet, it’s bound by your sheet’s sharing permissions and your organization’s data egress policies.

Don’t collect (or provide) information via a Smartsheet form that your sheet collaborators shouldn’t have or share, like passwords or credit card information, and use judgment before opening a URL provided via a form. 

Consider using Dynamic View if your sheet contains columns that shouldn't be visible to all collaborators.