Likelihood to Recommend Notion is good for a plethora of use cases. The templates that it offers give just a few established pages for common uses but these are some of my favorites:
Kanban board: we use it a lot in my company to manage tasks and meetings Note taking: whether in a professional or academic environment, Notion is well suited to take notes of everything regardless. Software documentation: the "code" component to insert code snippets is perfect for creating tutorials and documentation for software development. Finance control: I use the "my finances" template to have a proper following of my monthly transactions, which allowed me to be more responsible with my money. Inventory management: Since I own multiple peripherals and general equipment, being able to have a portable inventory of all of it that includes their original value, warranty length and current state has been perfect to know when clean, maintain or straight up replace everything. Read full review For teams and users who are very familiar with Excel and its mode of operation, Smartsheet will feel like a walkover. If you have a number of users who use Excel or Google Sheets for their personal project management then you will find this tool to be very useful and somewhat familiar.
Teams that may be used to other project management suites or styles would find Smartsheet a bit challenging to adapt to, as formulas and formatting can be challenging to adapt to.
Read full review Pros Team Collaboration. In Notion's software is the ability to see precisely who is working on a project and where. This eliminates any confusion when on calls or when working on the same project simultaneously. It is easy to tag co-workers to precise moments and build conversation streams. Text Coding. When transitioning text from our Notion ideation and drafting boards to our website backends, the coding holds on all of the text. Organization. Whether it's utilizing a "pin board" set up or nestling pages within pages, it is possible to keep everything organized and easy to find for every member of your team. Read full review The easy to use dashboard has enabled us get comprehensive view of projects across the entire business. It has streamlined internal communication with ease of sharing information across different teams. Smartsheet automates our workflows, enhances collaboration and ensures there are no data silos. I like that it saves time for us and ensures we spend less time switching between apps. Read full review Cons The increase in integrations with third parties will always promote the adoption of the platform in companies. Personalization with logos and corporate colors sometimes makes the difference when selecting a tool in a corporation. Having multiple functionalities for working in manufacturing companies and with devices developed by third parties encourages other companies to select Notion as their flagship tool to offer implementation packages under alliances that favor its use. Read full review Smartsheet set up is similar to Excel, yet when you upload an Excel file, things like conditional formatting are lost. Smartsheet has its own conditional formatting, and you have to reinstate the rules. It would be great if those would apply automatically once a file is uploaded Some Smartsheet management and access rules can take some tweaking to work properly. This may be a case of offering more info to admins so they can apply these better and with more efficiency Read full review Likelihood to Renew It definitely meets our needs as far as organizing and archiving our tasks and files. As we train more staff to view it, I see opportunities for more improvement, which I am sure this program can handle. I look forward to seeing continued improvement from Smartsheet on their capabilities and functionality.
Read full review Usability Smartsheet is very easy to learn. However, while I have been able to pick it easily, Microsoft Excel and Project super users that I have trained on Smartsheet get bogged down in the differences and can find it frustrating. Explaining the differences ahead of time and why Smartsheet is being chosen instead of a different software seems to counteract those reactions
Read full review Support Rating I give this rating because it fills a niche in the market.
MS Project scares many away from proper task management but there are limited tools our there, especially cloud-based that are mobile-friendly. Smartsheet fills this market gap, especially for small to medium-sized businesses. IT is not fair to compare it to
MS Project , but fairer to see what gaps it fills.
Read full review Implementation Rating It's absolutely paramount to take a few minutes to actually play with the software. It's nearly impossible to do anything wrong or make a mistake which cannot be fixed easily. Under the help menu is Live Training option. After you familiarize yourself with the commands, watch the live training for some in depth understanding of how to make the software fit your needs perfectly.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Trello only has the Kanban board feature and is great for task management, while Notion has a vast array of features, is easier to use, and has a more visually-appealing interface. I choose to use Notion over
Trello due to its increased versatility and greater customization capabilities.
Read full review Jira and
Redmine are much more robust and technologically advanced project management solutions. I enjoy using either when managing a very large project. However, I prefer to use Smartsheet for my smaller to medium sized projects. As for
Google Drive - I would say that Google sheets and Smartsheet are almost identical in my opinion when it comes to functionality. Personally I prefer to manage smaller projects via
Google Drive , but it is a personal preference!
Read full review Return on Investment In just a short amount of time, the majority of my course draft has been transferred into an interactive online course, always live Sufficient control over page structure gives a clean look, with sufficient means to add some personal touches After a learning period, I could concentrate on the content rather than the tech A huge motivational drive to learn more about no-code platforms (enthusiastic learner!) Read full review This has really opened up collaboration across teams. A lot less working in silos. It hasn't fully replaced any one tool so it means having to go to another place. Hopefully, we can eliminate a tool or two in the next six months. Read full review ScreenShots