Smartsheet Integration

Sync a Smartsheet with Building Swell in both directions, and map its statuses to real progress.

Last updated About 2 hours ago

Introduction

The Smartsheet integration keeps a Smartsheet and Building Swell in step. It works both ways: a pull brings changes from the sheet into Building Swell, and a push writes Building Swell progress back out to the sheet.

It is for shops whose schedule already lives in Smartsheet and is going to keep living there. Nobody has to retype a date twice, and the office keeps the view it is used to.

Set-up is a real piece of work, mostly because you are teaching two systems to agree on what a row means. Budget an hour and do it once, properly.

Not seeing Integrations? Reach out to your company admin to update your permissions. See the Roles guide.

Connect the Account

Open Integrations and pick the Smartsheet card.
Use Add connection and provide your credentials from Smartsheet.
The card reads Connected when it is live, along with Last synced and Last validated.

A connection can also read Degraded, Needs reconnect or Disconnected. Credentials expire, so a healthy integration will need reconnecting eventually. Use Reconnect and give it fresh credentials: your configuration is preserved, so you are not rebuilding the mapping.

Point It at a Sheet

Choose the sheet to sync, then tell Building Swell how to read it.

Match rows to work. Pick the column that identifies a Building Swell order. You can match on order or on project. This is the decision everything else depends on, so get it right first.
Limit what syncs. Nominate a checkbox column and only rows with it ticked will sync. This is the safest way to pilot on part of a sheet.
Import row hierarchy brings the sheet’s indentation across rather than flattening it.
Preserve unmapped columns in notes keeps the columns you did not map, so nothing on the row is silently dropped.

Pushing can also create a new column in the sheet when Building Swell has something to write and there is nowhere to put it.

Status Mapping, the Part That Matters

This is the heart of it. Your sheet has its own status words. Building Swell has phases and stages. Status mapping is where you say what each of your words should do.

For each status value in the sheet, pick the Building Swell meaning:

Meaning	What a pull does
Order is working in a phase	Advances the order into the phase you choose.
Order is working at a stage	Advances the order up to the phase and stage you choose.
A phase is complete	Completes the phase you choose, and every phase before it.
Entire order is done	Marks the whole order done.
A phase is on hold	Puts the phase you choose on hold.
Entire order is on hold	Puts the order’s current phases on hold.
Ignore	Nothing. A pull leaves progress alone, and a push never writes this status.

Use Ignore generously

Any sheet has status words that are not really progress: a review flag, a waiting-on-somebody note, one person’s shorthand. Map those to Ignore. A status left mapped to real progress will move work in Building Swell every time somebody types it into the sheet.

Phases are the unit most of this maps onto, so it is worth having them settled first. See Phases.

Choose How Often It Runs

Sync can run as often as every 15 minutes or as rarely as daily, with a range of intervals in between.

Frequent is not automatically better. A 15 minute sync on a sheet several people edit live will move work in Building Swell all day. If your sheet gets worked in bursts, hourly or daily is calmer and much easier to reason about when something looks wrong.

Guardrails Worth Turning On

Block auto-create outside pull scope stops a sync inventing records from rows you did not mean to include.
Block auto-create workers stops names in the sheet becoming people in Building Swell.

Both are worth having on for a first run. A sync that quietly creates a hundred workers from a name column is a bad afternoon.

You can also set a default project and scope the integration to particular departments rather than all of them.

Watching It Run

The Activity log shows each run and how it went: Running, Partial or Failed, with the Errors behind a failure.

Partial is the one to read. It means some rows synced and some did not, which usually points at a mapping that does not cover something the sheet contains.

A run that has jammed can be abandoned and re-run.

Tips

Pilot with the checkbox column. Tick ten rows, sync those, check what happened. Far better than pointing it at a whole sheet and finding out.
Map every status, even the ones you do not care about. Ignore is a real answer and the safest default for anything ambiguous.
Start slow on the schedule and speed it up once you trust it.
Reconnect rather than rebuild when credentials expire. Your mapping survives.
Check Activity after the first few runs. Partial runs are the early warning that something is unmapped.

FAQ

Which direction does it sync?

Both. A pull brings the sheet into Building Swell. A push writes Building Swell progress out to the sheet.

Will it change my whole sheet?

Only rows in scope. Nominate a checkbox column and only ticked rows sync, which is how you keep a pilot small.

A status in my sheet keeps moving work it should not.

It is mapped to real progress. Change it to Ignore.

The connection says Needs reconnect.

Credentials have expired. Use Reconnect and provide fresh ones. Your configuration is kept.

A run came back Partial. What does that mean?

Some rows synced and some did not. Open the run in Activity and read the errors. It is usually something in the sheet the mapping does not account for.

What happens to columns I did not map?

Turn on Preserve unmapped columns in notes and they are kept on the record rather than dropped.

Conclusion

Connect the account, decide which column identifies an order, and spend your time on the status mapping, because that is what actually moves work. Pilot with a checkbox column, keep the guardrails on for the first runs, and read Activity until you trust it.

Need help? Hit the chat button or click "Ask" in the app. You can also reach us at support@buildingswell.com.