Camera Product Release
Published on 12 February 2018
The Camera release contains a highly-anticipated feature that we know will be very exciting for Smartsheet users. Dashboards now have a widget available that can generate charts and graphs from user data.
Hot on the heels of the Abacus release, which gave users the ability to use Cross-Sheet formulas, Camera allows users to add a Charts widget that displays sheet data (even data generated from formulas).
Garvice Eakins, Software Development Engineer and lead developer of the charts and graphs feature, shared his insight about working on Charts.
“We wanted to keep the dynamic nature of sheets," Garvice said. "Users are able to select a range of data that is automatically updated when new rows are added . It’s not just a snapshot of your data, charts will be kept up to date as sheets are updated—tying into the Dashboards refresh capability.”
The Charts and Graphs widget is generated using a popular open-source tool called Chart.js. The project has 50 to 60 active contributors and the Smartsheet team has already submitted a couple pull requests to the project. The Charts widget is released in collaboration with a UX refresh that brings in a new color pallette—giving user’s charts or graphs more colors and increased contrast.
To see what other updates and changes are coming out with the Camera release, take a look at the official release notes.
The artwork for the Camera release was painted by Katie Bouwkamp, Senior Communications Manager for Smartsheet. With a painting style that involves many layers, colors, and pieces that take on a life of their own, Katie took a different approach when creating the artwork for Camera.
“Going into it, I knew I wanted bold colors and to ‘capture’ a camera, but not lose the abstract flair," Katie said. "I made some digital mock-ups before applying it to canvas. It’s a simple piece, but also extremely technical, given the fine/straight lines.“
"Something interesting to note -- instead of painting with brushes, I applied the paint using palette knives. Occasionally I’ll use a brush, but this painting was done with only knives.”
The artwork in Smartsheet’s previous release, Abacus, contained the hidden letter ‘u’. The Camera release artwork contains a secret letter. Hint: it’s in braille. Can you find it?
