April 17, 2020
We have updated the From field in notification emails for all automated alerts, reminders, and requests, and the Reply-To field in notification emails for all automated requests.
What has changed
When an alert is triggered by a single user’s change(s) in your sheet, that user will now appear as the sender name for the notification email.
The sheet owner will appear as the sender name when the notification email delivers:
- An alert triggered by multiple users’ changes in your sheet
- A reminder (a time-based alert)
- An update request
- An approval request
When the notification email delivers an update request or approval request, the sheet owner will also appear as the reply-to name and email address.
NOTE: The sender email address has not changed for any notification email. It remains automation@smartsheet.com.
Why we made these changes
We often hear from customers asking how they can improve the open and response rates for their automated alerts, reminders, and requests. While researching the issue, we determined that one of the obstacles to getting more engagement with automated notifications was the generic sounding “Smartsheet Automation” sender name in the From field.
We considered multiple replacement options and got feedback from customers. In the end, we decided to align the email sender name with the name you already see when viewing the same notification in Notification Center.
We also took this opportunity to update the Reply-To field for requests. In most cases, we had already assigned a user to the Reply-To field of notification emails:
- For alerts triggered by a single user, you see that user in the email Reply-To
- For reminders or alerts triggered by multiple users: you see the sheet owner in the email Reply-To
But the Reply-To for automated update requests and approval requests was automation@smartsheet.com. Users would occasionally respond directly to the email, and their response would go to an unmonitored Smartsheet inbox.
After considering different options with feedback from customers, we ultimately decided to align the reply-to name and address for automated requests with what we already do for reminders and alerts triggered by multiple users.