Likelihood to Recommend I think Azendoo is suited well to small office tracking projects and tasks together. The shared projects/calendar use is helpful and can make work easier if everyone uses it in a similar manner. The ability to add things from other sources (
Dropbox ,
Evernote , etc) does make it a useful platform because you can integrate other things into the app well. The visibility and shared spaces provide good accountability and follow up for work being done.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Pros Software Updates - The azendoo interface is constantly being updated with new features which are helpful to our organization. For example, they just rolled out the ability to assign subtasks, so that we don't have to manually update the assignee on each step of a large, multi-step task. Email Notifications - azendoo provides complete customization over the amount of notification emails you receive. Some of us prefer to be emailed with each update made within a task, whereas others prefer just a once-daily notification email. Levels of organization - azendoo provides many tiers of structure within the platform, making it easy for us to layer levels of detail for a single project. For example, at the workspace level we can define where our teams "live" on azendoo, and at the subject level we can categorize projects for tracking purposes. With the new addition of subtasks, we now have an additional layer of organization which helps us keep track of where a task is at in its lifecycle. Read full review 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. Read full review Cons Despite being integrated with Google Calendar, this integration presents some inconveniences, so working with them together is not very convenient. It requires fairly stable internet access to avoid a slow connection with your platform. When performing searches, it must be done within the limit of work since otherwise no results are found. Its cost can be high but I think it's worth it. It is necessary to introduce it to the team slowly so that they can adapt to the software and thus get the most out of it. Read full review 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 Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review Usability 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
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Implementation Rating 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.
Read full review Alternatives Considered azendoo is a different tool, meant for a different project type. While it's a good program on its own,
Evernote ultimately had all I needed as a single employee/student is the only person within my workspaces. I did not need to network and as such, I did not find it applicable. Later down the road in a shared office, I might feel differently.
Read full review 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!
Read full review Return on Investment azendoo's integration with Google Drive has been valuable to our organization, as we are heavy users of Drive. We've been able to seamlessly attach documents to tasks which has been very helpful from a collaboration perspective. Training new team members - It's relatively easy to get new team members up-to-speed on what's going on in the department, as they can just log into azendoo and catch up on all of our existing projects and things coming down the pipeline. App - azendoo's mobile app has been great for keeping up with progress on items while many of us are out of office or working away from the office. The app has a great user experience and is much easier than keeping tabs via email. Read full review This has really opened up collaboration across teams. A lot less working in silos. It hasn't fully replaced any one tool so it means having to go to another place. Hopefully, we can eliminate a tool or two in the next six months. Read full review ScreenShots