Use the Smartsheet Connector with Claude

The Smartsheet Claude MCP integration lets you interact with your Smartsheet data using natural language directly in Claude. Instead of manually reviewing rows, building reports, or writing summaries, you can ask questions, generate updates, and take action on your sheets using plain English.

Learn about the underlying tools that power this integration in the Smartsheet MCP server tools article.

The examples below are designed to help you explore what’s possible and adapt prompts to your own workflows.

Before you begin

To use the examples in this article, you must first install and connect the Smartsheet Claude MCP integration.

If you haven’t completed setup yet, follow the instructions in Install the Smartsheet integration with Claude.

Once connected, make sure the Smartsheet connector is enabled in your Claude chat.

How to use Claude with Smartsheet

You can ask Claude questions or give instructions using everyday language. Claude reads live Smartsheet data you have access to and responds with summaries, insights, or actions based on your request.

Below are common usage patterns with example prompts you can copy and adapt.

The examples provided assume you have allowed Claude to read and write data to Smartsheet.

Identify risks and early warnings

Use Claude to surface potential issues before they become blockers. Examples:

• What’s about to slip in the next two weeks? Show me tasks due soon that are still Not Started or In Progress.
• What hasn’t been updated in the last two weeks?
• Which projects have more than three items marked Blocked?

When to use this:

• Monitoring delivery risk
• Finding orphaned or stale work
• Preparing for escalation conversations

Turn sheet data into updates and reports

Claude can transform raw sheet data into clear, ready-to-share narratives. Examples:

• Summarize what changed in the Marketing Campaign sheet since Monday.
• Generate a ‘wins of the week’ summary from my Sprint sheet for Slack.
• Draft an email to stakeholders explaining the delay on Phase 2 based on current blockers.

When to use this:

• Weekly status reporting
• Stakeholder communication
• Meeting preparation

Support decision-making

Ask Claude to analyze patterns and summarize trade-offs across your data. Examples:

• Based on my Vendor Evaluation sheet, which vendor scores highest overall? Summarize the trade-offs.
• Do we have the capacity to take on Project X? Show current workload by owner.
• Compare progress between Q1 and Q2 initiatives.

When to use this:

• Resource planning
• Prioritization
• Executive decision support

Improve team productivity

Use Claude to quickly understand workload, unblock work, and prepare for team rituals. Examples:

• What did my team complete this sprint? Group results by owner.
• Show me everything assigned to Jamie that isn’t complete.
• Create a daily digest of what’s due today and who owns it.

When to use this:

• Standups and retrospectives
• PTO and coverage planning
• Daily task reviews

Maintain data quality and governance

Claude can help identify gaps, inconsistencies, and structural issues in your sheets. Examples:

• Find rows missing required fields like Owner, Due Date, or Priority.
• Are there duplicate task names in my Master Task List?
• Rename the Assignee column to Owner.

When to use this:

• Audits and cleanups
• Enforcing standards
• Ongoing sheet maintenance

Work with discussions and comments

Claude can read, create, and manage discussion threads and comments on rows and sheets — without leaving your conversation. Examples:

• What are people saying about the launch tasks? Summarize the key points
• Start a discussion on each overdue row, asking the owner for a status update
• Add a comment to each blocked item explaining how it was resolved

When to use this:

• Documenting decisions and remediation steps in context
• Running async standups or status check-ins
• Keeping the discussion history clean at the end of a sprint

Analyze dashboards

Claude can read your dashboards and cross-reference the metrics against source sheet data. Examples:

• What dashboards do I have access to?
• Pull the KPIs from my ops dashboard and explain what they show
• Is the dashboard data current, or does it look stale compared to the source sheets?

When to use this:

• Portfolio visibility and executive reporting
• Validating that dashboard metrics match the underlying data
• Getting oriented in a new workspace

Use reports for cross-sheet analysis

Claude can read cross-sheet reports to give you a portfolio-level view without pulling each sheet individually. Examples:

• Pull the cross-project status report and show me everything overdue
• Use the resource report to find who's overloaded, then reassign tasks on the source sheets
• What does the risk report show that individual sheets don't?

When to use this:

• Multi-project analysis without manual sheet-by-sheet review
• Portfolio-level risk and resource planning
• Validating source sheet data against aggregated report views

Help with onboarding and knowledge transfer

Claude can explain how sheets are structured and how work flows through them. Examples:

• Explain how the PMO Project Tracker sheet is structured.
• What status values are approved in this sheet and what do they mean?
• Walk me through the approval workflow based on how tasks move through statuses.

When to use this:

• Onboarding new team members
• Documenting processes
• Reducing team knowledge

Multi-step workflow examples

Claude handles compound workflows that require analyzing, acting, and documenting in a single conversation. Some examples of how these chains work in practice:

• Find risks, fix them, document what changed, then verify: Ask Claude to scan for at-risk items, update their status, comment on each row explaining what changed, and then re-pull the report to confirm the fixes took effect.
• Audit data quality, clean it up, and confirm: Have Claude scan for missing or inconsistent values, fix the issues, post a comment on each affected row, and verify the source sheets against the cross-sheet report.
• Use a report to drive source sheet updates: Pull a cross-sheet report, identify issues across projects, update the relevant source sheets directly, and start discussion threads for items that need team input.
• Sprint wrap-up: Review completed work and velocity, post a retrospective discussion thread on the sheet, and add the next sprint's tasks — all in one conversation.

Power tips for better results

• Be specific about timeframes (for example, this week, last 30 days, Q1) and sheet or workspaces where the source data should come from.
• Ask for a format if needed (bullet points, table, checklist, or email).
• Use follow-up prompts—Claude remembers context within the conversation.
• Break complex tasks into steps (analyze first, then summarize or update).