Smartsheet MCP prompt library

Smart Assist requires a Pro, Business, Enterprise, or Advanced Work Management plan. MCP-enabled AI tools require a Business, Enterprise, or Advanced Work Management plan.

Use the example prompts to surface at-risk items, summarize project and portfolio activity, prepare reports and meeting agendas, manage team workload, improve data quality, and more. And when you’re ready to try sequencing prompts, you can explore Multi-step workflow chains.

For information about AI-powered chat tools you can use with Smartsheet, refer to Conversational AI: Smart Assist and MCP.

Before you begin

Keep the following ideas in mind as you browse this article and work with the prompts:

• The prompts are categorized by work objective. The categories are listed in the table of contents, to the left of the article body.
• Each prompt uses example item names and values. Replace them with names and values that fit the work you’re doing.
• For work that involves multiple changes, refer to the Best practices for previewing changes with prompts.

The example prompts execute operations on Smartsheet data via the Smartsheet MCP Server. These operations are known as the Smartsheet MCP Server’s tools (or MCP tools). For details on the MCP tools, visit Smartsheet MCP server tools.

Enjoy using the example prompts!

Risk and early warning

The prompts in this category identify risks and warn teammates about items at risk.

Detect and call out slipping items

What's about to slip in the next 2 weeks?

Smartsheet scans due dates vs current status, and groups items by severity.

Follow-up: mark the items with a warning:

Update those 4 items to At Risk status

The at-risk items now have the status value “At Risk".

Identify overdue tasks and their owners, and track days overdue

Show me everything that's overdue and who owns it

Smartsheet filters for Due Date \< today, Status ≠ Complete, and groups results by owner.

Follow-up: add a column that tracks the number of days each item is overdue.

Add a 'Days Overdue' column with calculated values

Your sheet's new Days Overdue column indicates the number of days (if any) that each task is overdue.

Attach a blocker email to each at-risk row

Attach the vendor's blocker email to each at-risk row

Binds the supporting evidence to the rows it affects.

Follow-up: Summarize the pattern from blocked row attachments

Pull the proof attached to each blocked row and summarize the pattern

Reads existing row attachments to find the common cause.

Reporting and communication

The prompts below help you prepare reports, emails, and meeting agendas based on project and portfolio status.

Write a status update for your manager

Write a 3-bullet status update for my manager

Progress, blockers, next steps — synthesized from live data.

Draft a project progress email

Draft a stakeholder email about project progress

Smartsheet drafts a professional, formatted email with a subject line, context, and a set of questions.

Generate an update to post to the team on Slack

Give me a Slack-ready update for the team channel

Casual, scannable, under 200 words.

Prepare talking points for Monday standup

Prep me for my Monday standup

Blocked items, what's due this week, team status.

Follow-up: Scan discussions for blocker mentions

Check discussions for blockers worth mentioning

Identify the top five sprint wins

What are the top 5 wins from this sprint?

Recently completed items ranked by priority/impact.

Generate a weekly project change log

Create a weekly change log for this project

Uses cell history to show what changed, who changed it, when.

Follow-up: Stamp a "Last Reported" date on rows

Add a 'Last Reported' column and update it

Summarize all workspace projects as portfolio view

Summarize all projects in my workspace as a portfolio view

Browses workspace, pulls each sheet, synthesizes across all.

Follow-up: Create a consolidated portfolio dashboard sheet

Create a consolidated dashboard sheet

Draft an escalation email about blocked items

Draft an escalation email about the blocked items

Pulls blocked items, includes specifics, professional tone.

Identify highlights for a board presentation

What should I highlight in my board presentation?

Key metrics, risks, wins — formatted for executive audience.

Generate data-backed one-on-one talking points

Give me talking points for my 1:1 with the

Data-backed talking points with specific numbers.

Draft a status email from a portfolio report

Pull the portfolio report and draft a status email from it

Uses cross-sheet report data to compose executive communication.

Summarize key metrics from an executive dashboard

What does my executive dashboard show? Summarize the key metrics.

Reads dashboard structure and widget data for synthesis.

Pull source files and integrate into report

Pull the source files referenced on this sheet and incorporate them into the report

Finds attached evidence and integrates it into the narrative.

Attach a sent status email as proof of send

After sending the status email, attach a copy to the sheet as proof of send

Anchors the communication artifact to the work it described.

Build a stakeholder report with linked supporting docs

Build a stakeholder-ready report and link the supporting docs row by row

Synthesizes findings then attaches evidence to each row referenced.

Decision support

The following prompts assess capacity, project health, bottlenecks, trade-offs, dependencies, and resource reallocation options.

Check team capacity for a new project

Do we have capacity for a new project? Show workloads.

Counts active items per person across sheets.

Follow-up: Suggest low-priority items to deprioritize

What could we deprioritize to make room?

Compare the health of two projects side by side

Compare Project A and Project B health side by side

Pulls both, compares % complete, risks, team allocation.

Follow-up: Create a project comparison sheet

Create a comparison sheet

Assess whether a project needs escalation

Should we escalate this project? Give me the evidence.

Assembles overdue count, blocked count, budget burn rate.

Identify the bottleneck across active projects

Who's the bottleneck across our active projects?

Cross-project owner analysis — finds over-committed people.

Follow-up: Reassign lower-priority tasks from overloaded person

Reassign 3 of their lower-priority tasks

Rank projects by health and risk level

Which project is healthiest and which needs the most attention?

Portfolio-level ranking by completion rate, risk count, freshness.

Calculate sprint velocity and improvement trend

What's our sprint velocity? Are we improving?

Counts completed items per sprint, shows trend.

Show what gets dropped with a 20% scope cut

Show trade-offs: if we cut scope by 20%, what do we drop?

Ranks by priority, shows what's lowest impact.

Follow-up: Move low-priority items to a backlog status

Move those items to a Backlog status

Find the most impactful cross-project dependencies

What are the top dependencies blocking the most work?

Analyzes blocker reasons and predecessor relationships.

Model reallocation options from a resource report

Use the resource report to model reallocation options

Pulls report for cross-sheet resource view, identifies flexibility.

Compare dashboard metrics against raw sheet data

What do the dashboards show vs what the raw sheets say?

Compares dashboard-level metrics against source sheet reality.

Pull supporting docs before making a decision

Pull the supporting docs attached to each option before I decide

Surfaces evidence trail for each row in a decision matrix.

Build a decision sheet with attached source proposals

Build the decision sheet and attach the source proposals to each row

Creates the comparison structure with evidence baked in.

Team and productivity

The following prompts surface blocked owners, workloads, overdue tasks, velocity, reassignments, and team accomplishments.

List who is blocked for standup context

Who's blocked right now? I need standup context.

Blocked items with owners and blocker reasons.

Follow-up: Pull row discussions for blocker context

Pull the row discussions for context

Show today's tasks grouped by owner

What's due today and who owns it?

Today's items grouped by owner.

Show all of Sarah's incomplete tasks

Show me Sarah's workload — she's going on

All incomplete tasks assigned to Sarah.

Follow-up: Reassign Sarah's urgent tasks to Mike

Reassign her 5 urgent tasks to Mike

Show who is overloaded this sprint

Who's overloaded this sprint?

Active task count per person.

Summarize last week's team accomplishments

What did the team accomplish last week?

Completed items grouped by person, sorted by date.

Add five new tasks to the sprint board

Add these 5 tasks to the sprint board

Creates rows with names, owners, dates, status.

Mark all of Jake's tasks as Done

Mark all of Jake's completed tasks as Done

Finds Jake's completed items, updates status.

Find if blocked items share a common dependency

Do blocked items share a common dependency?

Cross-references blocker reasons across blocked items.

Calculate team velocity across three sprints

Calculate team velocity for the last 3 sprints

Counts completions per sprint, shows trend.

Find who hasn't updated tasks recently

Who hasn't updated their tasks in 2+ weeks?

Uses modification dates to find stale owners.

Comment on reassignment rationale on affected rows

After reassigning tasks, comment on each with the reason

Documents reassignment rationale for each affected row.

Start daily update discussions with blocked owners

Start a discussion thread asking blocked owners for daily updates

Creates targeted discussions on blocked rows requesting status.

Attach yesterday's standup notes to today's row

Attach the meeting notes from yesterday's standup to today's standup row

Binds running context to the recurring artifact.

Pull spec docs attached to each sprint task

Pull the spec docs attached to each task in this sprint

Gathers all per-row evidence for sprint review prep.

Data quality and governance

The following prompts audit missing values, duplicates, invalid dropdowns, stale sheets, column usage, and change history.

Audit a sheet

Does this sheet look healthy?

Surfaces the following issues:

• Missing fields 
• Inconsistencies
• Duplicates
• Stale rows

It describes each issue, summarizes them, and suggests resolution steps that you can execute in follow-up prompts.

Find rows missing owner, due date, or priority

Find rows missing an owner, due date, or priority

Audits null values in key columns.

Follow-up: Set the missing priorities to Medium by default

Set the 8 missing priorities to Medium

Detect duplicate rows in the sheet

Are there duplicate rows in this sheet?

Scans for identical task names or matching key fields.

Follow-up: Delete identified duplicate rows

Delete the 3 duplicates

Find values not matching the dropdown options

Show me values that don't match the dropdown options

Compares column dropdown definitions vs actual values.

Follow-up: Standardize status values across all rows

Standardize 'Done' to 'Complete' across all rows

Run data quality audit across entire workspace

Run the same audit across all sheets in this workspace

Browses workspace, audits each sheet, consolidates findings.

Add a governance Last Reviewed date column

Add a 'Last Reviewed' column for governance tracking

Creates a date column.

Follow-up: Set today's date for all active rows

Set today's date for all active rows

Flag regulatory requirements

Are there any projects with regulatory or compliance requirements?

Identifies projects with regulatory or compliance requirements, describes the requirements found in each project, and suggests steps to address the requirements.

Identify columns with no data in any row

Which columns are unused — no data in any row?

Scans for empty columns that might be obsolete.

Follow-up: Delete identified empty columns

Delete the 2 empty columns

Show who last modified each row and when

Show me who modified each row last, and when

Uses cell history for audit trail.

Add "On Hold" to the Status dropdown

Update the Status dropdown to add 'On Hold' as an option

Modifies column configuration.

Comment on each fixed row after cleanup

After cleaning up data issues, comment on each fixed row

Documents what was changed and why on each affected row.

Verify data fixes using a cross-sheet report

Verify fixes against the cross-sheet report

Re-pulls report data to confirm source sheets now pass audit.

Attach an audit log before and after cleanup

Attach the audit log doc to the sheet before and after the cleanup

Creates a verifiable governance trail.

Capture the sheet version before and after cleanup

Capture the sheet version before and after the cleanup, then confirm only my changes landed

Version-pinned write — proves no concurrent edits collided.

Find sheets inactive in last ninety days

Find sheets with no Last Reviewed activity in the last 90 days

Workspace-wide governance sweep using sheet metadata.

Setup and structure

The following prompts create and configure sheets, columns, workspaces, folders, and templates from scratch or existing structures.

Create a new project tracker with standard columns

Create a new project tracker with standard columns

Creates sheet with Task, Owner, Status, Priority, Due Date, Notes.

Follow-up: Populate the tracker with starter tasks from a plan

Add 10 starter tasks from my plan

Set up a sprint board from an agile template

Set up a sprint board from the agile template

Creates sheet from template with sprint-ready columns.

Create a new workspace for Q2 initiatives

Create a new workspace for Q2 initiatives

Creates workspace, then can create folders and sheets inside.

Follow-up: Create folders for each workstream inside the workspace

Create folders for each workstream

Organize workspace into department-based folders

Organize my workspace — create folders by department

Creates nested folder structure.

Add a Priority dropdown column to sheet

Add a Priority column with High/Medium/Low options

Adds dropdown column with defined options.

Rename the Assigned column to Owner

Rename the 'Assigned' column to 'Owner'

Updates column properties.

Delete the deprecated Phase column

Remove the deprecated 'Phase' column

Deletes column after confirmation.

Build a budget tracking sheet from scratch

Build me a budget tracking sheet from scratch

Creates sheet with budget-specific columns.

Follow-up: Add department-specific line items to a budget

Add line items for each department

Clone the current project structure for a new engagement

Clone this project structure for a new engagement

Creates from template, populates with new details.

Create a tracker with a project brief and spec attached

Create a new tracker and attach the project brief and spec to it

New sheet ships with its source-of-truth docs already bound.

Bootstrap an engagement workspace with folders and sheets

Set up the engagement workspace with folders and starter sheets

Full bootstrap: workspace → folders → sheets in one chain.

List available templates for new sheets

What templates are available for new sheets?

Explains template options and creation patterns.

Onboarding and exploration

The following prompts explain sheet structure, status values, hierarchy, assets, and overall Smartsheet capabilities to new users.

Explain what a sheet tracks and how

Walk me through what this sheet tracks

Explains column structure, data patterns, hierarchy.

List all accessible workspaces and their contents

What workspaces do I have access to?

Lists workspaces and their contents.

Explain the meaning of sheet status values

What do the status values in this sheet mean?

Pulls dropdown options and explains the workflow.

Describe what you can do with my Smartsheet data

What can you do with my Smartsheet data?

Explains full capability: read, write, create, discuss, attach, reports, dashboards.

Browse the contents of a Marketing workspace

Show me what's inside the Marketing workspace

Browses workspace contents: sheets, folders, reports, dashboards.

Explain a sheet's row hierarchy and indentation structure

How is this sheet organized — parents and children?

Explains row hierarchy and indentation patterns.

List accessible dashboards

What dashboards do I have access to?

Lists all accessible dashboards with names and modification dates.

List all accessible reports

What reports are available to me?

Lists all accessible reports for cross-sheet analysis.

Show the full picture of my sheets, reports, and dashboards

Show me the full picture: sheets, reports, dashboards, and attachments

Combines workspace browse with full asset listings.

Explain how a report differs from its source sheet

How is this report different from the source sheet?

Explains report as read-only cross-sheet view vs editable source.

Inventory attached files and their relevance

What files are attached to this sheet, and what do they cover?

Inventories the evidence and explains its relevance.

Check a sheet's version and change frequency

What version is this sheet at, and how often is it changing?

Lightweight activity check using version number.

Cross-project and portfolio

The following prompts surface priorities, conflicts, over-commitments, and portfolio summaries across multiple projects and workspaces.

Show high-priority items across top projects

Show all High priority items across my top 5 projects

Searches across sheets, filters by priority.

Follow-up: Build a consolidated cross-project tracker sheet

Build a consolidated tracker sheet

Find people over-committed across multiple projects

Where is the same person over-committed across projects?

Cross-references assignees across multiple sheets.

Search all sheets mentioning a keyword

Find all sheets that mention 'Q2 launch'

Keyword search across workspaces.

Detect timeline conflicts across projects

Are there timeline conflicts between these 3 projects?

Compares dates and dependencies across sheets.

Aggregate active projects into portfolio summary sheet

Create a portfolio summary sheet from all active projects

Aggregates key metrics into new sheet.

Map all workspaces, folders, and sheets

What does our complete workspace structure look like?

Maps all workspaces, folders, and sheets as a tree.

Use a portfolio report instead of reading each sheet

Pull the portfolio report instead of reading each sheet

Uses cross-sheet report for efficient multi-project analysis.

Validate report findings against dashboard metrics

Cross-reference the report findings with dashboard metrics

Validates report data against dashboard widgets for consistency.

Find sheets with the same vendor doc attached

Find every sheet across the portfolio that has the same vendor doc attached

Cross-portfolio attachment scan — find shared evidence.

Build a portfolio tracker linking to each project sheet

Build a portfolio tracker with each row linked to its source project sheet

Creates a navigable index using sheet URLs as row attachments.

Bulk actions and modifications

For any bulk write touching more than 25 rows, see Best practices for bulk changes with prompts first. The patterns there reduce risk to near zero.

Batch-update all completed Q4 tasks to Done

Mark all completed Q4 tasks as Done

Finds and batch-updates status.

Set the priority High for tasks due next week

Set all tasks due next week to High priority

Date-filtered batch priority update.

Bulk transfer all tasks from Alex to Jordan

Reassign everything from Alex to Jordan

Bulk owner transfer.

Delete all rows with Cancelled status

Delete all rows with status 'Cancelled'

Finds and removes cancelled items (with confirmation).

Create twenty rows from a provided task list

Add 20 tasks from this list I'll give you

Batch row creation from user-provided data.

Transition all Backlog items to In Progress

Move all 'Backlog' items to 'In Progress'

Status transition for a batch of items.

Timestamp the Reviewed column for all active rows

Set today's date in the 'Reviewed' column for all active rows

Governance timestamp batch update.

Clear the Notes column for completed rows

Clear the Notes column for all completed items

Batch cell clearing.

Test bulk update on one row first

Run that bulk update on one row first as a canary, then the rest

Sample-of-one staging — verify behavior on a single row before scaling.

Version-pin a sheet, update it, and confirm your changes

Pin the sheet version, run the bulk update, confirm only my changes landed

Version-pinned write — detects concurrent edits.

Preview filter scope and diff before a bulk write

Show me the exact filter scope and the old→new diff before I confirm the bulk write

Filter-then-confirm dry run pattern.

Discussions and context

The following prompts summarize, create, and update discussion threads, extract decisions, and post resolution comments on rows.

Summarize discussions about launch tasks

What are people saying about the launch tasks?

Pulls sheet discussions, summarizes key points.

Show the discussion thread on a blocked row

Show me the discussion thread on that blocked row

Gets row-specific comments with participants.

Follow-up: Update the row based on the discussion decision

Update the row based on what was decided

Find all unresolved discussions in the project

Are there any unresolved discussions in this project?

Scans all threads for open questions.

Identify the most active discussion contributors this week

Who has been most active in discussions this week?

Summarizes participation across threads.

Extract all decisions made in a sheet discussions

Summarize all decisions made in discussions on this sheet

Extracts decision points from comment threads.

Follow-up: Add a Decisions column with key discussion takeaways

Add a Decisions column with key takeaways

Show a row's full comments and history

What's the context on this row — comments and history?

Combines cell history + discussion thread for full picture.

Request owner updates on all overdue rows

Start a discussion on each overdue row asking the owner for an update

Creates targeted row-level discussions with status request.

Post resolution comments on blocked item rows

Add a comment to the blocked items explaining the resolution

Posts resolution context to existing discussion threads.

Create a sheet-level sprint retrospective discussion

Create a sheet-level discussion for sprint retrospective notes

Starts a new sheet-wide thread for team-level conversation.

Post a status comment on every milestone row

Post a status comment on every milestone row

Batch-creates comments on milestone-tagged rows.

Update an earlier comment with revised timeline

Update my earlier comment with the revised timeline

Edits an existing comment (current user's comments only).

Delete resolved discussion threads from the last sprint

Clean up the resolved discussion threads from last sprint

Deletes closed-out discussion threads after confirmation.

Remove outdated comments and re-post current info

Delete my outdated comments and re-post with current info

Removes stale comments and adds fresh ones.

Comment on each row with its fix

After fixing blocked items, comment on each with the fix

Documents what was done to unblock each item.

Attach a supporting deck to the relevant comment

Attach the supporting deck to the comment that decided this

Binds the source-of-truth doc to the conversation that referenced it.

Summarize all discussions that include attachments

Pull every discussion that has an attachment, summarize what each is

Audit of where evidence has been posted into conversations.

Evidence and attachments

The following prompts inventory, attach, replace, and audit files across sheets, rows, comments, and workspaces for complete evidence trails.

Why this category exists. The agent now reads and writes the file layer of the work surface, not just the grid. Every write workflow can now ship with its evidence trail. Every read workflow can now pull in the source-of-truth docs that anchor the data.

List all files attached to this sheet

What files are attached to this sheet?

Inventory the supporting evidence.

Pull a complete evidence trail for a row

Pull the full evidence trail on this row — files, links, and discussion attachments

Combines row, comment, and discussion attachments into a single view.

Attach a Drive doc to the project tracker

Attach this Drive doc to the project tracker

Sheet-level evidence attach.

Attach a vendor email to relevant rows

Attach the vendor email to each row that mentions them

Per-row evidence attach across a filtered set.

Attach a supporting one-pager to a specific comment

Attach the supporting one-pager to the comment that referenced it

Comment-level evidence attach — anchors decisions to source docs.

Find rows missing required attachments

Find every row across this sheet that's missing a required attachment

Audits for evidence gaps row-by-row.

Identify attachments older than six months

Which attachments on this sheet are stale — older than 6 months?

Pulls attachment metadata, identifies aging files for refresh or cleanup.

Replace an outdated draft attachment with the final version

Delete the outdated draft attachment and replace it with the final version

Lifecycle management — swap stale evidence for current.

Build a workspace-wide attachment index

Build a single index of every attachment across this workspace

Cross-sheet attachment inventory.

Find sheets sharing the same Drive folder attachment

Find sheets where the same Drive folder is attached — they're related

Cross-portfolio evidence overlap detection.

Attach a sent stakeholder email as communication proof

Attach a copy of the sent stakeholder email to the sheet as proof of communication

Closing the loop — outbound communication becomes attached evidence.

Attach an audit log before and after cleanup

Attach the audit log to the sheet before after the cleanup so the trail is complete

Two-sided governance attach — pre and post snapshots.

Dashboards and visibility

The following prompts list, read, validate, and summarize dashboards, their source data, KPIs, and widget freshness.

List all accessible dashboards

What dashboards do I have access to?

Lists all dashboards with names, IDs, and modification dates.

Show the executive portfolio dashboard structure and data

Show me the executive portfolio dashboard

Pulls dashboard structure, widget layout, and source data.

List dashboard source sheets

What sheets and reports feed into this dashboard?

Maps dashboard widgets back to their source sheets and reports.

Read ops dashboard KPIs and explain them

Pull the KPIs from my ops dashboard and explain what they show

Reads widget data and synthesizes key performance metrics.

Check if dashboard data is current or stale

Is the dashboard data current or stale?

Checks dashboard modification dates against source sheet activity.

Validate dashboard metrics against its raw sheet data

Compare what the dashboard shows vs the raw sheet data

Validates dashboard metrics against source-of-truth sheets.

Find all dashboards referencing a specific sheet

Which dashboards reference this sheet?

Scans dashboard widgets to find all consumers of a specific sheet.

Build a directory of all dashboard purposes

Summarize all my dashboards — what does each one track?

Lists dashboards then reads each to build a directory.

Draft board summary from dashboard widget data

Use the dashboard data to draft a board-ready summary

Synthesizes dashboard widget data into executive narrative.

Identify dashboard widgets with stale data

Which dashboard widgets show stale data and need a refresh?

Cross-references widget timestamps with source sheet versions.

Reports and cross-sheet analysis

The following prompts list, filter, and act on report data spanning multiple source sheets for portfolio-level analysis.

List all accessible reports

What reports do I have access to?

Lists all reports with names and descriptions.

Pull and read the cross-project status report

Pull the cross-project status report

Reads report data spanning multiple source sheets.

Filter a portfolio report for overdue items

Show me all overdue items from the portfolio report

Filters report data for Due Date

Attach supporting docs to each source row from a report

Pull the report and attach the supporting docs back to each source row

Closes the loop — report findings get evidence anchored on source sheets.

Use report to scope and stage a bulk update

Use the report to scope a bulk update, then stage it before applying

Report-driven write with staging discipline.

Multi-step workflow chains

Here are some commonly used prompt sequences to complete tasks.

Find at-risk items → update status → comment what changed → attach the supporting doc → verify version delta

Scan data quality → preview the diff → fix inconsistencies → confirm version delta and re-pull report

Pull cross-sheet report → scope and stage the changes → update source sheets → start discussion threads with attached evidence

Review dashboard metrics → identify problems in source → fix rows → add context → attach the source data extract

Search for sheets → cross-reference data → create consolidated tracker → attach source sheet links to each row

Pull blocked items → read discussions and attached evidence → post status comments → reassign or escalate

Create new sheet → add rows and columns → attach project brief and spec → move to proper workspace folder

Review completed work → calculate velocity → post retro comments → add next sprint tasks

Pull report data → cross-reference dashboard → draft executive communication → attach to source sheet as proof

Capture pre-version → run change on one canary row → verify behavior → run on remainder → confirm post-version

Add proposed-value column → populate → wait for human review → promote to real column → drop the shadow