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.
$12
per month per user (up to 10 users)
TeamDesk
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
TeamDesk is a low-code development platform for online database creation. Business owners or managers can build a unique web database solution without any programming to facilitate working with data, organize routine work and create an accessible data source for teams.
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
Teamdesk is perfect for any operational tracking requirements for companies small or large, and any situation where you need to integrate with other systems since it can be set up to do that flexibly via its API and Webhooks. For example, you could track contacts, time and expense, projects and tasks, schedules, web leads, check-ins, order entry, quotes and invoices, support ticketing, and use the more advanced features to integrate with other systems to pull in currency exchange rates, various lists of data from other databases, send faxes, send bulk emails and so on. It does not do offline storage, so it would not be appropriate for a situation that offline work.
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
Provide a very good, customizable user management system.
Gives a lot of flexibility to customize database to your needs without requiring coding skills. Even allows to customize interface if you can code in html.
Provides unlimited space and records.
Gives an opportunity to have a database on EU servers to comply with GDPR
Offers very good pricing options comparing to competitors (Salesforce, Quickbase, etc.) and offers unlimited space.
Gives an opportunity to share your ideas how to improve the platform, many of which are being implemented
Customers service if very helpful and friendly. All my questions were answered within a couple hours.
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
The only down side that I see, is that you have to be willing to spend some time creating your database. You start with a blank canvas and all the tools you need to design a custom database. But, you have to take the time to do it. If you take that time, it is well worth it.
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
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!
Quickbase is a good product which I have been using for 5 years (powerful, nice interface) but - not so powerful as TeamDesk - started to move toward large companies (>50 people) - more expensive than TeamDesk Zoho was not as flexible as TeamDesk Caspio was not as powerful as TeamDesk
The per user cost is significantly lower than any prior option we have tried. The time spent getting things set up was time well spent for the overall long-term savings.
