Using Smartsheet’s powerful tools for rapid app development, the team quickly developed a smartphone app in our platform, which provided managers with contact information for employees and a simple user interface to verify their status. Are you okay? Have you evacuated safely? Do you need help—and if so, how can we help you? While allowing Starbucks to act compassionately and deliver support to employees, the app also made it possible for employees able to return to work to reopen stores. As the doors opened, those locations provided free co昀昀ee and needed comfort to 昀椀rst responders, disaster relief workers, and those reeling from the disaster. With over 1,500 stores a昀昀ected by Harvey, Starbucks also faced a massive operational challenge. The standard procedure for reporting damage at a location wasn’t adequate to handle the scope Form builder and mobile form or the scale of wreckage from a multi-state natural disaster. Following previous hurricanes, Starbucks had been unable to gather the documentation and evidence required to make insurance claims. The Starbucks team then added a form to the app that empowered district managers to document and photograph the damage to stores using their mobile devices. That evidence allowed Starbucks to initiate claims immediately, for the 昀椀rst time ensuring that the damage While allowing Starbucks to done by a disaster was precisely reported, quickly repaired, and properly covered by insurance deliver support to employees, Days after Harvey, Irma slammed into Florida and roared up the Atlantic coast. Behind Irma came Maria, devastating Puerto Rico, and other islands in the Caribbean. In the years since, the app also made it possible for each hurricane season has brought a new wave of catastrophe, and as a global organization, employees to reopen stores. Starbucks has seen its stores and employees ride out natural disasters of every kind. Nothing can stop the forces of nature, but thanks to the capabilities we’ve developed to empower organizations to respond quickly to a crisis, Starbucks is now better equipped to meet disasters with care and intelligence—making sure employees are safe, reopening locations to provide needed employment and services, and establishing islands of stability as communities rebuild. | 29 SMARTSHEET IN ACTION