Get Sheet (Advanced)

Pulls data from a sheet in Smartsheet, with far more control than the native Get Sheet action because it exposes all available query parameters.

How this compares to the native action

	Native Get a Sheet	Get Sheet (Advanced)
Browse and pick a sheet by name*	Yes	No
Determine which columns to include	Yes	Yes
Total parameters	2	13
Filter by specific rows	No	Yes
Apply a saved filter view	No	Yes
Extra detail (attachments, formulas, formatting, and more)	No	Yes
Pagination control	No	Yes
Change detection (by version or modified date)	No	Yes

*Both actions accept a sheet ID typed in directly or set dynamically from earlier in the flow, while the native action also offers browsing sheets by name. In practice, you usually already have the ID available from a trigger or a previous step, so this rarely is useful in practice.

Parameters

Parameter	Required	Description
sheetId	Required	The ID of the sheet being accessed.
include	Optional	Elements to include: attachments, columnType, crossSheetReferences, discussions, filters, filterDefinitions, format, ganttConfig, objectValue, ownerInfo, rowPermalink, source, writerInfo.
exclude	Optional	Elements to exclude: filteredOutRows, linkInFromCellDetails, linksOutToCellsDetails, nonexistentCells.
columnIds	Optional	Only return these specific columns.
rowIds	Optional	Only return these specific rows.
rowNumbers	Optional	Only return rows at these row numbers.
filterId	Optional	Applies a saved filter view and marks filtered-out rows accordingly.
rowsModifiedSince	Optional	Only return rows modified after this date/time.
level	Optional	0 = text, 1 = contact list, 2 = contact and picklist.
pageSize	Optional	Rows per page. Defaults to 100, max 10000.
page	Optional	Which page of results to return. Defaults to 1.
ifVersionAfter	Optional	Returns an abbreviated sheet if the version matches; otherwise returns the full sheet.
accessApiLevel	Optional	Set to 1 to allow COMMENTER access. Defaults to VIEWER access.

The optional parameters are hidden by default. Use the Advanced parameters dropdown to check the ones you want to use.

Using sheetId

This can be a fixed, hardcoded value taken from the properties of a sheet in Smartsheet, but it is very common to get the sheetId dynamically from a trigger or another action.

Using include

You can select more than one at a time. Here’s what each one adds:

Here, attachments and writerInfo are both selected in Include, alongside pageSize set to 10000.

• attachments — row and sheet-level files or links.
• columnType — the type of each cell’s column.
• crossSheetReferences — details about formulas that pull data from other sheets.
• discussions — comment threads on rows.
• filters — whether each row is currently filtered out by any saved filter view.
• filterDefinitions — the actual rules behind any saved filter views on the sheet.
• format — visual formatting on cells, rows, and columns.
• ganttConfig — Gantt view settings, if Gantt is enabled on the sheet.
• objectValue — the underlying raw value for special column types (multi-contact, multi-picklist). Pairs with: level below.
• ownerInfo — who owns the sheet.
• rowPermalink — a direct link to each row. Returned as permaLink on each row (capital L), which is different casing from the sheet-level permalink field.
• source — if this sheet was created from a template or another sheet, this shows which one.
• writerInfo — who created and last modified each row.

Using exclude

Not commonly needed. Trims specific detail out of the response to keep payload size down and is mostly relevant on very large or heavily cross-referenced sheets.

Using columnIds

Narrows the response down to specific columns instead of returning every column on the sheet. This is useful if your flow only needs a specific set of columns and you want to improve the efficiency of your flow.

Using rowIds

Narrows the response down to specific rows when you already know their unique row IDs. Normally these IDs come from an earlier step in the flow, like a trigger or a previous action such as Get Report.

Using rowNumbers

An alternative to rowIds to specify rows. Instead of using unique row IDs, this parameter uses the relative position of the row in the sheet. For example, you can specify a row’s position in the sheet (“row 5”) rather than its underlying ID. You’d use one or the other, not both.

Using filterId

Applies a saved filter view from Smartsheet and marks the rows it would hide as filteredOut in the response, rather than physically removing them. You’ll usually pair this with exclude=filteredOutRows if you only want the rows that pass the filter.

Using rowsModifiedSince

Useful for a flow that runs on a schedule and only needs to process what’s changed since the last run, rather than the whole sheet every time.

Using level

Pairs with: include — this parameter only does something when objectValue is also set in include above.

Only relevant if this sheet has multi-contact or multi-picklist columns. Leave at the default (0) for ordinary text columns.

Using pageSize

Default is 100 rows, max is 10,000. For most sheets, setting this to 10000 once means you’ll never need to think about pagination at all.

Using page

Rarely needed. Only matters if a sheet exceeds the number you set in pageSize and you need to loop through additional pages.

Using ifVersionAfter

An advanced option for flows that check whether a sheet has changed before doing the more intensive work of pulling the full sheet. Most flows won’t need this.

Using accessApiLevel

Not commonly used if you’re running the flow on sheets you own or administer. Smartsheet added Commenter as a distinct access level after the API already existed, so by default it’s quietly treated as Viewer for backward compatibility. Setting this to 1 tells the API to recognize Commenter properly, which is relevant if your API token’s access to this sheet is specifically at the Commenter level.

Example

A flow that pulls only the rows modified in the last 24 hours from a large sheet, using rowsModifiedSince, and processes just those instead of looping through the entire sheet every run.

What you get back

The response includes the sheet’s columns and rows, plus whatever you asked for with include. The fields you’ll most often reach for in a later step:

• Each row’s id — needed if you’re looping through rows and feeding them into Update Rows or Get Row.
• Each column’s id — needed to reference specific cells by column when building Insert Rows (Advanced) or Update Rows requests.
• The cell values themselves, under each row’s cells.
• If you included attachments, each one comes back with its own id, attachmentType, and url. This is the pairing that matters for the Get Attachment action.
• If you included writerInfo, each row’s createdBy and modifiedBy come back as an object with email and name.
• If you included rowPermalink, each row’s link comes back as permaLink with a capital L, distinct from the sheet’s own lowercase permalink field.
• If you included format, each row gets its own row-level format string in addition to the format already available on individual cells.

Gotchas