Acollab vs. Notion vs. Smartsheet

At the company I work for, we use Notion as an organizational base for all sectors and projects. For example, we use it for the marketing team, customer support team, among others. And for each one, we can create pipelines, tasks, due dates, execution time, tags with different colors. It's something very versatile that helps with everything around here. We've even created a sales funnel in Notion.

Incentivized

The Smartsheet platform is extremely similar to Microsoft Excel, so if you are familiar with Excel, you will pick Smartsheet up quickly. Even if you aren't Smartsheet has a relatively simple user interface, meaning just about anyone can learn it. One thing to note is that the interface is that some may consider the interface so simple that they feel the need to look for more robust platforms. If you have a small to medium project that needs to be manages in a central hub, Smartsheet would be a great fit. If you have a very large project, I might consider looking into more advanced platforms.

Incentivized

• I love that you can create nested pages, allowing for separate sections to organize information as needed.
• I appreciate the convenience of effortlessly uploading images to any section.
• I appreciate that when adding links, you can embed them so the website displays directly on the page.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• I use Notion on my personal tablet, and unlike on the computer, I have a lot of difficulty editing backgrounds, GIFs, and page dividers. It's not as user-friendly, and often the elements end up cut off or misaligned, which is frustrating.
• While the current calendar feature is helpful, I'd love to see more customization options. The Google Calendar style isn't always ideal, especially for tasks without specific times or for ongoing projects that require daily maintenance.
• It would be fantastic to have more flexibility in customizing Notion pages. For example, I'd love to create planners with the freedom to add illustration boxes, stickers, or GIFs without being restricted to a fixed layout.

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized

We're too settled in the ecosystem and we have no major complaints with it. No reason to move unless you have a burning pain point

Incentivized

Smartsheet has made my work life easier. Reduced my email significantly. Smartsheet and SaneBox have got me leaving the office with 0... Yes 0 emails in my inbox. My inbox would reach 150-250 email per day. Smartsheet brought that number down significantly and SaneBox took it the rest of the way. Do yourself a favor and check out SaneBox, too.

Notion addresses most of our needs and help teams to organize their tasks, track their progresses and then archive for future reference. The company uses Notion to share announcement, holiday schedules, employee contact information and organizational structures. Everyone finds it useful and helpful. The notifications are instant. Reminders are on time.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

They're a smaller company but they've always given great service when we rarely need to reach out. Pretty good online content but a bigger user base would help to produce more content in a self-sufficient community much as we see with Salesforce. To be fair we haven't needed their direct customer support very often. The sales guys are nice and not too pushy!

Incentivized

Work with the Smartsheet support team to get the best overall. If no one in your organization has used Smartsheet before, the support team will get things started. We had a couple of people who had used this product before and it was a great help in getting our framework together how we wanted to use it.

Notion is much more robust than Google Tasks, which I find very limited. Notion is far more customizable and affordable than Asana, which is more of a turnkey solution for teams that want to work within a pre-defined structure. Notion and ClickUp are comparable, in my opinion, in terms of task management and affordability, however Notion is the more customizable and expansive option whereas ClickUp is mostly just for task management.

Incentivized

Smartsheet is a dedicated project management tool that is built on spread sheet principles. When compared to Microsoft's own offering, Smartsheet came out on top in some areas like dedicated project management features vs having to build custom features to Microsoft 365. However when you compare them on price, Microsoft 365 definitely has more value than Smartsheet.

Incentivized

• It has streamlined our processes across various teams to all work from a signle source of truth
• Maintaining this source of truth is a full time job
• It has reduced our overall tool set by completely eliminating two other softwares we were paying for

Incentivized

• Our positive ROI has decreased the overall cost in project management as it reduced the amount of MS project licenses we needed.
• We have also seen a positive ROI on using the cloud storage and it automatically supports proper version control.

Incentivized