Documentation
How SmartShi works
What is SmartShi?
SmartShi is a Smartsheet-style work-management app: your data lives in tables, and you work with it in a fast spreadsheet grid — open a table, click a cell, type, press Enter. That's the whole learning curve.
Under the hood, SmartShi does not store your data itself. It is built on Teable, an open-source database platform backed by Postgres. Teable is the engine; SmartShi is the product you actually use.
The Teable integration
Your browser
│ (no tokens, no database access — just this site)
▼
SmartShi ── server-side API calls, authenticated ──▶ Teable ──▶ Postgres
(this app) with a scoped access token (private) (private)- Arm's length.Teable runs completely unmodified as a private backend service. SmartShi talks to it only through Teable's public REST API, using Teable's MIT-licensed client library.
- Server-side only.The access token that authorizes reads and writes never leaves the server. Your browser receives only the rows and columns it needs to render — never credentials, never Teable's address.
- Locked down by network design. In production, Teable and Postgres have no public ports at all. The only thing reachable from the internet is SmartShi itself, behind HTTPS.
- One source of truth. Every edit you make in SmartShi is written straight to Teable and is immediately visible to anything else that reads the same base. There is no second copy of your data to drift out of sync.
Using the grid
- Open a table — the home page lists every table in the workspace; click one.
- Edit a cell — click it (or focus it and press Enter / F2), type, then Enter or click away to save. Escape cancels. While a save is in flight the cell shimmers amber; if the save fails, the cell reverts to its last good value and a banner explains what happened — the grid never pretends a failed save succeeded.
- Add a row — the dashed + Add row button appends a blank row instantly and confirms it in the background.
- Read-only columns — headers marked with *are column types SmartShi doesn't edit yet (dates, selects, formulas, attachments…). They display safely; text and number columns are editable. Select-type values render as colored status pills.
- Paging — large tables load 100 rows at a time; use Prev / Next in the footer. The footer always shows the table's true total.
Example: a 30-second project tracker
- Open Projects from the home page.
- Click + Add row, then click the new row's Name cell and type the project name.
- Fill Owner and Budget the same way — numbers align automatically.
- Reload the page if you like: everything you typed is already saved in Teable.
Why not just use Teable directly?
You can — Teable has a full UI of its own. SmartShi exists for a different job:
| SmartShi | Raw Teable | |
|---|---|---|
| Audience | End users who just need a sheet | Builders configuring databases |
| Surface area | One focused grid — nothing to misconfigure | Full admin UI: schemas, automations, permissions |
| Exposure | Only the tables of one curated workspace | Whatever the logged-in account can touch |
| Credentials in the browser | None — access is server-side, least-privilege | A real Teable login per person |
| Product direction | A Smartsheet alternative we control end-to-end | A general-purpose no-code database |
The practical benefit: you can hand this URLto someone and they can work with the data immediately — no account setup, no training, no risk of them deleting a column or rewiring an automation. Admins keep the full power of Teable's UI for schema design; everyone else gets a sheet.
What's not here yet
- User accounts & invites. SmartShi currently has no login of its own — everyone who can reach the site shares one read/write view, authorized by a single server-side token. There is no invite feature yet; per-user accounts, roles, and invitations are on the roadmap. (Teable itself supports collaborator invites, but those are for the private backend, not this app.)
- Creating tables in-app. New tables are created in Teable today; an in-app “new sheet” flow is the next planned feature.
- Alternate views (kanban, calendar, Gantt), formulas authored here, attachments, and real-time co-editing.