Dynamic View App: Create and Administrate Views

Boost collaboration with the granular sheet sharing capabilities of the Dynamic View premium app. Share sections of your sheet or report that you choose without having to share the source item. For example, share certain row information with the appropriate vendor such that they can view and edit only the data that applies to them.

This article focuses on creating or editing a view as a Dynamic View administrator. If you’re looking for information on interacting with a view, see Interact with a View.

Before You Begin

Dynamic View is a premium offering available for purchase to Smartsheet customers using a Business plan or higher. For more information about how to purchase Dynamic View, please contact Smartsheet Sales.

Dynamic View App Essentials

Before you get started with creating views in the app, you’ll need to create the source sheets and reports that will hold your process, as well as set permissions for view creators. Please review Manage Processes at Scale with Dynamic View to make sure that you’ve got all of the necessary elements in place first.

How to Access

After purchase, you can access the Dynamic View app from here: https://dynamicview.smartsheet.com

Create a New View

Configuring what source sheet or report data to share and to whom starts with creating a view. 

NOTE: Before you create a new view, you’ll first need to configure the source sheets and reports in Smartsheet that will hold your process. See Manage Processes at Scale with Dynamic View for information on what you’ll need before creating a new view.

To create a new view:

1. Sign in to the Dynamic View app with your Smartsheet credentials.
2. In the left panel, click the menu icon (upper-left corner) and select New View.
   
   Your Smartsheet directory appears with the available sheets and reports that you can create views from.
   
   NOTE: If you don’t see a specific sheet or report in the directory, you may not be the Owner or shared to that item with Admin-level permissions.
    
3. Select the item that you want to create your view from and click the Create button.
   
   NOTE: If you selected the wrong source item, you’ll need to create another new view. (You can’t go back and select a different source item.)

The Settings pages for view appear (starting with the General page). Here, you’ll use the navigation panel at the top to navigate between each page as you configure everything from the name to the detailed sharing permissions.

See the Configure View Conditions and Sharing Logic below for information and best practices on each page.

Edit an Existing View

1. In the Dynamic View app, click the Menu icon in the upper-right corner to display your available views.
2. Select the view that you want to edit—it will load all relevant data.
3. Once the view has loaded, click Settings in the upper-left corner (underneath your profile image).

The Settings pages for view appear (starting with the General page). Here, you’ll use the navigation panel at the top to navigate between each page as you configure everything from the name to the detailed sharing permissions.

See the Configure View Conditions and Sharing Logic below for information and best practices on each page.

Configure View Conditions and Sharing Logic

The power of Dynamic Views is in setting fine-tuned sharing options and creating conditional logic which will show new data based on specific changes (which you define) that are made in the source item.

You determine all of these options on that view’s Settings pages. See the sections below for information and best practices on each page.

General: Name Your View and Set Overall Permissions

On the General page, you’ll name your view and set overall permissions for what people can view and whether they can add new items to a source sheet.

• Use the restrict view by current user setting to filter someone’s view down to only the rows they’re assigned to in a Contact List column.
• To allow people to submit new items back to a source sheet, enable New Item Submission.
• If you enable New Item Submission when your source is a report, you must also select a single source sheet (which the report is referencing) for new items to be submitted to.

View Display: Choose Which Fields are Shown

On the View Display page, you’ll specify which fields from the source you want to appear in the view. To do this, click the name of an Available field—it’ll instantly appear as a corresponding Visible field. 

IMPORTANT: These fields will be visible at all times. If you want to show fields only when certain conditions are met, don’t include them in the Visible fields section. You’ll be able to conditionally show fields on the Details Panel page.

• In the View filter section, you can select a dropdown or symbol column to allow anyone who will have access to the view to apply a quick filter based on that column.
• Check the boxes under the Attachments and Comments sections if you want others to view and add comments.

These fields will be displayed in the view as columns and rows.

Details Panel: Automatically Share Data When Conditions are Met

On the Details Panel page, you’ll:

• Fine-tune the field size (single line, multiple lines)
• Create a custom label for the field (click the blue arrow icon to the right of Custom label)
• Set level of access and importance of each field (required, read-only, hidden)
  
  Note that if all options are set to disabled, the field will be editable, but not required.
  
  
   
• Define form logic, which will conditionally show fields when other changes have been made to the source item (either through the Dynamic View app or through Smartsheet directly)

Click the Form Logic icon in the right panel to create rules that set actions for showing or hiding fields based on certain conditions being met.

Here’s an example of defining form logic rule that conditionally exposes a field:

In the example above: When any Status value has been set to Not Started, the Status field will then be shown as a required field in the view.

IMPORTANT: It’s possible to create rules with conflicting actions. Dynamic View will always ignore the rule that grants more permission in favor of the rule that grants least permissions.  For example, if you create one rule which will show a field and another which will hide the same field (both rules having the same trigger conditions), only the rule which hides the field will trigger.

The visibility permissions that you define here will be reflected in the details panel (on the right side) of the view, which is accessible when someone clicks a specific row in the view.)

Sharing: Define Who Has Access

On the Sharing page, you’ll:

• Specify administrators who will be able to see and edit source data from the view, but who can also edit the view settings (they must also be shared to the source item with Admin-level permissions, see Share Sheets and Reports).
• Share the view to people. What they’ll be able to see and edit depends on the settings chosen on the General, View Display, and Details Panel pages as described in the sections above. (They don’t need to be shared to the source content.)
• Enable access for an entire domain. What they’ll be able to see and edit depends on the settings chosen on the General, View Display, and Details Panel pages as described in the sections above. (They don’t need to be shared to the source content.)

NOTE: Dynamic View administrators have the highest level of access to the view. They’ll be able to edit all settings for the view, including what other people will be able to view and access. It’s recommended to limit your number of administrators on a view to people who are responsible for changing your process.