SmartTable Steps

Split one entry form into numbered steps, and hand each step to a different person.

SmartTable Steps lets a single entry be filled in stages by different people, instead of one person (or anyone with edit access) completing the whole form in one sitting. Each field belongs to a step; each step is assigned to specific users and/or user attributes; a user only ever sees and can edit the step(s) assigned to them, and can't jump ahead of the entry's actual progress.

Prerequisites

SmartTable Steps reads its step structure from the SmartTable's own field list — there's nothing to define on this tab that isn't already defined with the fields:

• Every field's row needs a step number (see Entry Sheet — Column Reference). Fields with no step number default to step 1.
• A step_name column is optional — set it once per step (repeated on every field row belonging to that step) to give the step a real label instead of a bare "Step 2".
• The sheet needs at least two distinct step numbers. A single-step form doesn't qualify — SmartTable Steps has nothing to gate and the tab behaves as if the feature were off entirely.

Resync the SmartTable after adding a step column, then open Settings → SmartTable Steps.

Building the schema in the app instead of a spreadsheet? The same two columns are in the schema builder grid — Step # and Step Name, next to Section Heading. Fill them there and save; no sheet and no resync involved. Everything below works identically whichever way the steps were defined.

Assigning Steps

The SmartTable Steps tab lists every step defined in the sheet. For each step:

The user picker only offers people who could actually act on the assignment — a Viewer, or anyone with no access to this smarttable at all, is filtered out automatically rather than left for you to discover as a dead assignment later.

Filling a Multi-Step Entry

An assignee sees the entry form as a row of step tabs instead of one flat form. Only steps up to the entry's current progress are reachable at all; anything beyond that renders as a locked placeholder. Within the reachable range, a step the user isn't assigned to still shows as read-only if "Show to later steps" is on for it, or is skipped entirely if not.

• Submit Step — finishes the current step and hands the entry to the next step's assignee(s), who are notified. If this is the last step, the whole entry is submitted.
• Save & Close — saves progress on the current step without submitting it, so the same assignee (or an admin) can come back and finish later.

A System Admin or SmartTable Admin can open and edit any step up to the entry's current progress, regardless of who it's assigned to — including a step that's already been submitted. Editing an already-submitted step's data after it cleared an approval gate (see below) automatically reopens that gate, since the original approval no longer reflects what's actually there now.

Approval Between Steps

If Entry-Level Approval Workflow is also enabled with an approval step tied to a given entry_step, submitting that SmartTable Step doesn't hand off to the next step immediately — it's marked pending approval and routed to that gate's approvers first, exactly like any other interleaved approval step. The next SmartTable Step only unlocks once the gate clears. A rejection sends the entry back through every step from the last cleared checkpoint onward for correction — the assignees resubmit, they don't retype anything, since field values are left untouched by a rejection.

Reverting a Step

In the entries list, an admin can click the small step-number badge on any in-progress entry to manually send it back to the step before its current one — including undoing a step that's currently awaiting its own approval. Everything from that step onward has to be resubmitted; the data already entered in those steps is kept, not deleted, so the original assignee can review and correct it rather than start over. An optional reason is included in the notification sent to whoever needs to redo their step.