AWS CodePipeline is a fully managed continuous delivery service that helps users automate release pipelines. CodePipeline automates the build, test, and deploy phases of the release process every time there is a code change, based on the release model a user defines.
$1
per active pipeline/per month
Microsoft Planner
Score 7.5 out of 10
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Microsoft Planner is presented as a solution to organize teamwork with intuitive, collaborative, visual task management. With it, users can create Kanban boards using task cards with files, checklists, and labels. Users can collaborate in Planner and Microsoft Teams and check visual status charts—all in the Microsoft cloud.
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Smartsheet
Score 8.4 out of 10
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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.
Compared to the other options, we already had access to Microsoft Planner, preconfigured accounts, and support and ordination from tech internally to use it. We previously used Wrike, I wanted to use Asana, and other people in the organisation either used Microsoft Project, or …
We selected Smartsheet because we needed something between Excel and MS Project. We have a group of staff members who were not Project Managers by trade, but yet managed teams and staff who are supporting smaller efforts with task management. They were looking for a simple tool …
I think AWS CodePipeline is a great tool for anyone wanted automated deployments in a multi-server/container AWS environment. AWS also offers services like Elastic Beanstalk that provide a more managed hosting & deployment experience. CodePipeline is a good middle ground with solid, built-in automation with enough customizability to not lock people into one deployment or architecture philosophy.
There are a few examples where MS Planner would be suitable for employees at a mature organization. In my opinion, if you have Outlook or Teams, you already have built-in calendars and to-do lists. If you need a project management tool, you have two options: either pay for MS Project or use an alternative tool like Monday, Asana, or Jira. Regardless, their free versions are much more sophisticated than Microsoft's (MS Planner). Any team wishing to put together a halfway-decent project management board will need to look elsewhere, as MS Planner is only suitable for a personal to-do list.
Smartsheet shines for collaboration. When you have multiple people involved with planning events Smartsheet makes it easy to share and collaborate. For instance, multiple people can be in Smartsheet working at the same time. Also setting permissions for exactly those who need to know is quite easy with Smartsheet. For data analytics and general spreadsheet purposes Excel is better but for project management and event planning Smartsheet is superior
Its hard to overstate the value of familiarity. Being able to use a tool that has some familiarity takes away the time needed to train and orient employees on a new tool and allows an organization to hit the ground running.
Smartsheet covers most of the basics of a project management tool, the usual tasks, milestones and project viewing options.
For data viewing, you get multiple data viewing options including a calendar view (good for marketing teams and those who work around scheduling), Kanban, Gaant etc
Would be nice to see a calendar view instead of a list view
Permissions aren't configurable, anyone can delete any task at any time and there is no recycle bin
Notifications aren't great, you have to be attached as an owner to a task to see comments and be notified of changes, and even then notifications aren't shown for a lot of things
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 is a very useful tool that brings teams in sync with one another. The integration with other Microsoft products makes it an obvious choice because you don't have to purchase a license for a completely different tool that doesn't have cross-functional capabilities with the software you already use on a daily basis.
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.
Overall, I give AWS Codepipeline a 9 because it gets the job done and I can't complain much about the web interface as much of the action is taking place behind the scenes on the terminal locally or via Amazon's infrastructure anyway. It would be nicer to have a better flowing and visualizable web interface, however.
The board-and-bucket layout makes it easy to organize tasks, track progress, and prioritize work at a glance, even for first-time users. I also appreciate how Planner seamlessly integrates with tools like Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint, enabling users to collaborate, schedule tasks, and access their plans without needing to switch platforms. I also like how it’s accessible not only on desktops, but also on mobile devices.
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
Our pipeline takes about 30 minutes to run through. Although this time depends on the applications you are using on either end, I feel that it is a reasonable time to make upgrades and updates to our system as it is not an every day push.
We didn't need a lot of support with AWS CodePipeline as it was pretty straightforward to configure and use, but where we ran into problems, the AWS community was able to help. AWS support agents were also helpful in resolving some of the minor issues we encountered, which we could not find a solution elsewhere.
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.
CodeCommit and CodeDeploy can be used with CodePipeline so it’s not really fair to stack them against each other as they can be quite the compliment. The same goes for Beanstalk, which is often used as a deployment target in relation to CodePipeline.
CodePipeline fulfills the CI/CD duty, where the other services do not focus on that specific function. They are supplements, not replacements. CodePipeline will detect the updated code and handle deploying it to the actual instance via Beanstalk.
Jenkins is open source and not a native AWS service, that is its primary differentiator. Jenkins can also be used as a supplement to CodePipeline.
Many areas of the company still use Trello to organize their activities and tasks, but gradually Microsoft Planner must replace the activities. Users are often "attached" to familiar technologies, but Office 365 takes advantage of the more organized use of the tools. This year we will not renew the Trello contract.
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!
CodePipeline has reduced ongoing devops costs for my clients, especially around deployment & testing.
CodePipeline has sped up development workflow by making the deployment process automated off git pushes. Deployment takes very little coordination as the system will just trigger based on what is the latest commit in a branch.
CodePipeline offered a lot of out-of-the-box functionality that was much simpler to setup than a dedicated CI server. It allowed the deployment process to built and put into production with much less and effort and cost compared to rolling the functionality manually.
In my experience, productivity is negatively impacted because assigning subtasks aren't clear on Microsoft Planner
Managers aren't able to track direct reports' tasks across multiple boards -- leading to poor visibility for us
Notifications aren't always sent to inbox, so you rely on people's own project management skills to follow the communication on tasks they're assigned to. In my experience, this leads to missed deadlines impacting customer relationships.
