Item: Smartsheet
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Smartsheet is used by our Project Management team to manage our project plans for our many clients. Smartsheet's easy-to-use UI will instantly feel familiar to anyone who has used MS Excel or any similar database tools. This interface allows new users to easily dive right in, without relying on tutorials like some of the other leading PM tools in the marketplace that are less intuitive and perhaps even overly-complex. I track project plans down to the task level in Smartsheet, and all of our project budgets are managed within the tool itself, as well.

Pros and Cons

Easy to use and intuitive
Sleek, clean user interface
Manages user groups, security, and permissions with ease

Parent / Child relationships at the 'sub-task' level could be easier to use. Sometimes i have issues 'rolling-up' data / numbers when I get below one level or two of sub-tasks. However it may just be user-error, as I have not had the time to investigate further or reference user manuals or tutorials.
Nothing else. Smartsheet works quite well and does not leave much to be desired.

Return on Investment

Ability to grow out our project management capabilities to a more mature organization, with standard processes, many of which are built on the way we manage projects within the tool.
Ability to build out a custom financial reporting tool that ties into Smartsheet, allowing us to do all of our financial performance management tracking based on percent complete. This shows clients how we are trending in relation to the budget.

Alternatives Considered

Compared to MS Project, which is the tool I used in the past for managing projects, I strongly prefer Smartsheet. I have turned down job opportunities that require projects to be managed with MS Project, rather than Smartsheet, because just maintaining the project plan can add unnecessary complexity that is not needed. I do not want to have to read tutorials to create a project plan that does what I need it to do. For these reasons, my go-to is Smartsheet - which does not leave anything to be desired for me personally in my project management roles.

Other Software Used

Tableau Online, Qlik Sense, Join.me

Likelihood to Recommend

Smartsheets is very well suited for building and managing project plans, no matter how simple or complex they are. Budgets are easily managed and maintained, as are scheduling dates and assigning users 'action items' and permissions, with cell-level security features available out of the box.

Smartsheets is well suited for collaboration. Multiple users, if given admin or editor privileges have the ability to make changes at once, avoiding issues that often can materialize regarding versioning errors typical, as a result of multiple authors or editors.

For project managers, smartsheets has multiple 'views' available, which can come in handy depending on your specific purpose. For those interested in seeing all of the details, the standard view is a table/spreadsheet type of view. For a more agile approach, or a simplified user view, their 'task-list' type view can help to easily view in a card-type of format and classify those tasks that have been 'completed' versus 'in-progress' , 'in qa' or other relevant category / classification. Other views include the Gannt chart view, which is helpful for seeing things in a calendar-like view, helpful in showcasing things like dependencies.

Smartsheets is the best tool in my PM toolbox

Overall Satisfaction with Smartsheet