The vendor states Freedcamp helps tens of thousands of teams around the world manage their work. Their free plan contains tasks(in list and kanban view), milestones, discussions, calendar,
time-tracking and password management. On their premium plans, they also offer Gantt charts, Wikis, Issue Tracking, CRM and Invoices+.
$2.49
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.
I have used a number of different Project Management Tools and this is the one I always make the team come back to, it's easy to use, has great support, and can be used by people of various levels of technical ability. When planning a complicated network, that needs to be sold to a customer, all people within the company have needs that have to be addressed, from the obvious technical, but also legal, regulatory, finance, and ordering of equipment and all these have different milestones, that interconnect, this is where Freedcamp shines, it allows all of the company to work together to achieve the technical sale.
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.
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.
I have people who struggle to use PC's using Freedcamp, so it's that easy to understand in the basic form. I've also had high-level CTOs using Freedcamp, so it covers all areas.
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
Especially a few years ago when Freedcamp was first starting, I needed support, sometimes, I'd find a bug as a heavy user, Igor and Angel are great people who are quick to reply and help you as well as the other great staff. Freedcamp's support is the best of any software product I use.
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.
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!
It's quite low cost for a business so that's a no brainer.
I also use it for a Non-Profit organization and we get a free version there, which is great.
I remember that the people running company planning especially loved how this made complex activity open for viewing by all within the company (as required) so that there was no "mystery" within projects, we all had an advance understanding of what resources and activities would be needed.
