Easy Projects is a project management tool designed for a wide range of businesses (small to mid-sized and enterprise level). It includes both basic features like creating projects and tasks and filling in the calendar, and also some advanced ones, including an interactive Gantt chart, an executive dashboard, time tracking and billing. It provides integration with MS Outlook, is customizable and has SaaS/On-Premise options.
$15
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.
Each member of our team can choose their own view, so they can see only what is relevant to them. Plus, we can keep track of everyone's progress without bothering them. Our team loves that everyone can have a different view, so they see only what's important to them. In addition, we can keep tabs on everyone's progress without pestering them. The user interface has some nice quality of life features, such as the different views for different members of our team.
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.
Easy Projects has some problems when it comes to accessing the site via different methods/browsers. It is either very slow or never works on a tablet. It is not smart-phone friendly. And it stopped working for us in Firefox -- all we could use is Safari or Chrome (we are a Mac-based office).
Easy Projects' email notifications are overwhelming. I turned them off completely since I was getting messages every time one little detail was added or changed.
While the reports are great, they are somewhat hard to pull. It takes a lot of trial and error -- I would not say the reports are an "intuitive area."
The biggest by far is what we fondly call "the screen of death." When you mark the last open task associated with a job as complete, a screen pops up that asks if you want to close the overall job, as well. The "yes" field is pre-selected, so if you are overzealous and click through quickly, it automatically closes the job. I don't know why they think this feature is helpful. We have so many staffers that complain they suddenly can't find their open job -- well, it's been marked completed and goes into the archive.
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
EP is great but could be better. EP has been a wonderful tool within our organization, it has helped us control expenses, resources, and the time needed to invest in each project, however when it comes to presenting reports and details it is a bit weak, there are more tools specialized in data visualization, and it would be good to make some kind of integration between EP and the other market alternatives
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.
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
In my personal experience, I only needed EP support once and the truth is that they attended me very well and very quickly, they helped me with what I needed, it was a question regarding the use of WebServices, they solved my doubt and then they contacted me another agent to verify that everything was resolved and if they could help me with anything else
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.
East Projects integrates with other financial systems such as NetSuite and Compass, which allows a great financial view into the existing and future projects and overall financial health of our resourcing. Other systems, such as Wrike and MS Projects, just focus on project/task management, whereas this is a one-stop shop. It also allows us to manage internal resources.
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!
Increased team collaboration improved the results significantly, because we managed to reduce the amount of time wasted on unnecessary iterations, therefore reducing costs.
The reasonable pricing enabled us to enjoy the service we needed with with less impact on our budget than we've expected.
