ShotGrid is a production management and review toolset for VFX, animation, and games teams. ShotGrid is equipped to handle creative production tracking needs, supporting teams from large to smaller studios.
$45
per month per user
Smartsheet
Score 8.2 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.
ShotGrid seems to be well suited for a video team for reviews and project tracking. It may not be well suited for Project managers who need to see the bigger picture of the project.
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.
Ordering comments made by different people by timecode/frame number, instead by the time and date the comment was made
Being able to move an uploaded video from shots to assets and vice versa. Right now we have to re-upload but lose any comments made already if they were in the wrong place
Custom filters are great but they could get a little confusing with all the options. Might help with guidelines or a place we could ask what we want and someone could answer with the best way to achieve those specific filters we want
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.
It's UI/UX is very robust. There's a lot of functionality but it's not very intuitive or intuitive. I spend time with new hires and contractors to overview ShotGrid for a day and revisit after a week or two. Questions always arise down the line
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
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.
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.
Wipster had limitations on video uploads, which was a major drawback. One thing we liked with Wipster was how we can see comments made in order on the timeline while watching the video.
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!
