Apptivo provides small and medium sized businesses with applications that include CRM, project management and invoicing solutions.
$10
Per User per Month
Smartsheet
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Smartsheet is an online project management and collaboration tool. It includes automated alerts, instantaneous updating and sharing across team members, resource management, nested tasks organized in a hierarchy, a Gantt chart view, exportable and automated reports, and integration with email.
I would absolutely recommend Apptivo! We have used Apptivo for years, and we wouldn't consider another platform to keep all of our contacts together in one place. It's easy to export certain lists for certain mailings and to add/remove new contacts and move things around as needed over time. There's freedom to adding new contacts and the pricing is phenomenal
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.
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
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.
Without a doubt, the best thing about Apptivo is that it has become a perfect internal and external communication platform. This platform will allow you to know who is taking care of certain tasks with clients and control all projects with your clients. With very affordable plans for your pocket, it has a free version for up to 3 users. It far surpasses quite a few CRMs in the same category. Apptivo CRM allows you to customize many details and work with it does not consume time or resources. You are faced with a very comfortable software to use, simple and well designed.
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
Apptivo is always quick to respond whenever we have had a problem over out time of using the program. The customer service reps are always very polite and professional in their responses and are very knowledgeable! I have never gone to them with a problem that they don't do everything in their power to help solve, and most times they have (abbreviating states is the only issue we weren't able to solve).
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.
If you are starting a business and want a free app or nearly free app that can grow with you....then apptivo could be for you. However if you grow faster than them then you will be quickly seeking alternatives
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.
The price was right for what we needed to use Apptivo for (the CRM and the contact management/project management models). And, we needed something basic and easy to implement so we could get up and running with little down time. The other systems we evaluated didn't seem to have the exact pricing and features/functionality we were looking for so we made the determination that Apptivo would be the best fit.
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!
