Connect project management metrics from Smartsheet to strategy in Cascade

Whether you’re a strategic leader responsible for monitoring and optimizing the performance of IT or a project executive handling IT projects and timelines, bringing your IT metrics closer to your strategy will help you drive faster results and improve the efficiency of your resources.

Integrate Smartsheet with Cascade to bring visibility on your key metrics like project progress, on-time completion rate, project costs and budget, incident handling, and so on. With this integration, you can automatically update your measures in Cascade, and report accurate progress on your strategic objectives.

This connection is enabled through Zapier. Eliminate the need to go back and forth between Cascade and your Smartsheet app. Keep your data up-to-date, accurate, and right where you need it. Save time spent on reporting and monitoring your strategy.

Being that one source of truth with centralized access to all company data, Cascade provides the ability to transform statistical information into actionable insights and a compelling narrative with effective data storytelling.

Prerequisites

Before you establish the connection, it is important that these prerequisites are met:

Cascade:

• A ‘Paid’ tier account in Cascade to access Zapier connections.

• A 'Measure' that is associated with your 'Objective' in the plan that you created in Cascade, and want to link to your Smartsheet.

• The tracking type of the measure is set as Zapier, with the initial and target values defined.

Zapier:

• A valid Zapier account.

Smartsheet:

• A 'Business' account in Smartsheet.

• A file in your Smartsheet account that has the measure's progress value (that needs to be updated in Cascade).

Integrate Smartsheet with Cascade:

Step 1: Connect Zapier with Cascade

It is important to establish a connection between Zapier and Cascade to start integrating the measures. You can then use the same connection to integrate other apps to Cascade via Zapier.

1. From the measure’s sidebar, under the Tracking section, select Zapier.

2. Enter the initial and target values for the measure to track progress. If you wish to customize the tracking option, toggle the Maintain button to define target and critical limits.

3. Click Save.

When you select Zapier from the measure's tracking section, a modal pop-up redirects you to Zapier. You'll now see the zap’s interface.

Alternatively, you can also establish a connection from Zapier.

1. Log in to your Zapier account.

2. Click My Apps > + Add connection, and search for Cascade Strategy.

3. Enter your Cascade credentials to establish the connection.

See How to Use Zapier with Cascade for more information.

Step 2: Sync the progress of measures in Smartsheet files to the relevant measures in Cascade

Now, to sync the progress made in a Smartsheet file to a measure in Cascade, you’ll need to get those details in the zap’s interface.

1. Set up the trigger:

1. Click + Create Zap or My Zaps from the left navigation pane to either create a new zap from scratch or to use a pre-made zap.

2. Search for Smartsheet, and choose a relevant trigger. The value obtained from this trigger must be mapped to the measure value in Cascade later.

3. Choose the sheet that contains the data or measure values.

2. Update measure in Cascade:

1. Now, select Cascade Strategy to update progress of the measure in Cascade.

2. Select the Cascade workspace, plan, and measure. 

3. Choose the Measure value from the triggered values obtained from the Smartsheet event.

4. Click Save.

Refer Integrate Smartsheet with Cascade article for detailed information on this integration. In the article, you'll see how you can use a tailor-made template for the most common trigger used with Smartsheet integration.

You've now successfully established the trigger and action. Now, with ease and no efforts from you, your values will get updated automatically in Cascade, every time the relevant event is triggered in Smartsheet.

For more help with the Smartsheet-Zapier workflows, please search for "Smartsheet" in Zapier Help Center.

Some tips:

• You can add a step for Scheduler and then run a query to fetch a dataset from Smartsheet to decide on what values you need to bring into Cascade.

• You can add your own custom unit if you do not find the unit of your choice. Just enter the text or symbol, and it’ll prompt you to add it to the list.

• Choose the relevant "maintain" options under the Target type dropdown when you need to customize the health of your measure.

Benefits

This integration provides you with all the elements for an effective “data storytelling”.

• Bring precise and up-to-date “data”: Track the progress precisely and on time with automatic sync between the Smartsheet files and the measures in Cascade.

• Build engaging “visuals”: Visualize the progress with the various measure widgets and custom charts in the dashboards.

• Create compelling “narratives”: Build reports to make guided decisions based on the progress made in these measures and thereby the objectives in the plans.

FAQs

My test with Zapier was unsuccessful. How should I proceed?

You can skip the test, and proceed to publish the zap. It might still reflect the progress in Cascade perfectly. But if it does not update the value, then reach out to us.

There is a connection error with Zapier.

Start a new zap connection and redo the steps.

My "updated row" trigger is triggering too many times.

It might be because you must have added a row somewhere in the sheet, and not at the very bottom. In that case, it'll consider every row after the insertion as an updated row and keep triggering.

"Column ID was not found" error.

Please check if the column in the Smartsheet in question was deleted. If yes, then redo the action to establish the connection once again.

I've completed all the steps, and yet the Publish to Zap is disabled. Why?

Look out for against any of the steps. If this is shown, it means that the particular step is not completed. Please go back, complete that step, and you'll now see that the publish is enabled.