Likelihood to Recommend It's great for small to medium business where you need to have tracked communication and conversations that can have milestones, deadlines, supporting files, and the ability to pass the task around to multiple individuals for completion. It's not exactly useful but with some work and maintenance can be used for issue tracking and work delegation
Read full review I believe SmartDraw is a great tool for small- to mid-sized organizations for simplifying the production and management of org charts. We've also had the PMO experiment with the use of some of their flow charts as well. If an organization has an HCM with the capability of producing (good!) org charts, that is likely the best option... but many that I have used in my 30-year HR career don't. So there is definitely a need for SmartDraw in the market!
Read full review Pros The user interface is intuitive and easy to learn. The ability to organize tasks by user, department, type makes it easy to keep on top of work. Ayoa is cross platform and has apps for mobile/tablet as well as the desktop app and browser version. Read full review Provides examples to work off of--these are helpful when you don't know exactly where to start. Provides a number of stylistic options without making things too complex, so you can be creative without getting overwhelmed. Provides a wide variety of templates, meets a wide variety of needs. Read full review Cons The administrative side of Ayoa is very limited. If a user accidentally deletes a board or leaves the company, it's a bit of a pain to get that data back. User administration is difficult and if a use who is invited selects the wrong link after registration they may get locked out of your invite. Read full review A month-to-month plan would be ideal for users that don't have a need to create many projects The sidebar navigation can be a little confusing with all of the tools listed. Offering customizable plans with only the feature you need would simplify navigation Read full review Support Rating They are always very helpful, we get computers every two years and I have to call them to move the license from one computer to another and they do it with a smile in their voice!
Read full review Alternatives Considered I've just started evaluating Planner with out recent upgrade to Business Premium but I'm finding that it could easily be used to replace Ayoa and would help offset the cost from the MS365 Business Premium upgrade by replacing another SaaS cost. It does almost all the same things, integrates in our already existing MS365 ecosystem, and is backed by Microsoft... it's just not as 'pretty' as the bubble boards
Read full review We have used Corel Draw and Adobe Acrobat. Both of those tools were good when they came out but the abilities of SmartDraw far outweigh both those tools. Corel Draw was also more complex to operate and do tasks, as was Adobe Acrobat in which some basic tasks took additional steps to complete.
Read full review Return on Investment Communication and follow-up has gone way up since we started using Ayoa. Accountability has also improved considerably since we started with Ayoa. It has unfortunately caused some burn out on some users because it had made it much easier to 'punt' work over to someone else without any prior communication. Read full review SmartDraw has provided good return for our internal purposes. Using it to understand an organization's structure and inner workings has been valuable. On the client side, creating steps and businesses processes has also been a big plus. It has helped decrease confusing reporting structures and has provided a detailed map for individuals to understand where they fit within their organization. Unfortunately, SmartDraw has been somewhat inefficient with some of the more complex projects on our plate and has really deterred certain employees from even wanting to use it. Read full review ScreenShots