Smartsheet Review

In a Nutshell

Smartsheet is designed first and foremost as an empowerment project management ecosystem to deliver actionable results, effective team projects, and positive change. A dynamic workspace geared towards helping individuals and teams realize their strategic objectives, Smartsheet is a multi-award-winning enterprise and solution, recognized by industry-leading authorities the world over. 

For teams, Smartsheet lives up to its namesake with the eponymous Smartsheet platform with robust functionality, and empowerment potential. Teams can scale workable solutions, and automate workflows on the Smartsheet platform with ease. Feature-rich functionality ensures a wealth of powerful integrations for achieving pre-stated objectives.

Driven by a strong sense of corporate social responsibility (CSR) Smartsheet is a thriving global enterprise that works hard to harness the collective vision of teams, driven by an empowerment agenda. Over the years, Smartsheet has been awarded by industry-leading authorities such as Seattle business, Boston Business Journal, MassEcon, and others for a wide range of achievements. 

Established in 2005, Smartsheet has offices around the world, in Sydney, London, Edinburgh, and Boston, with headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. With thousands of employees and customers across 190+ countries, this tailor-made project management solution offers a wealth of plans including individual, business, and enterprise options to satisfy the needs of clientele everywhere.

Trusted by Fortune 500 Companies and Fortune 100 Companies alike, Smartsheet offers credible solutions for the exigencies of project management. The likes of Domino’s, JPL, Alaska Airlines, Lego, Apple, NASA, and Cisco proudly utilize Smartsheet’s dynamic platform for project management activity. A wide range of tailored solutions is available to accommodate different types of business organizations, from SMEs to enterprise-level clients. Overall, Smartsheet dovetails as a fully functional solution for managing tasks and complex projects across the board.

How does Smartsheet meet each of these 5 criteria?

1. Customization Capabilities

Smartsheet is a dynamic workspace that allows you to scale instantly from a single project to an end-to-end work management platform. It is flexible, dynamic, and empowering, with no coding experience required. Smartsheet capabilities allow for quick and easy content collaboration, with custom email domains, a wide range of integrations, mobile functionality, and the ability to include premium add-ons, among others. 

Scores of WorkApps can be implemented and accessed, with full automation features available too. The benefit of implementing the Smartsheet project management solution is evident with the core capabilities available to project managers and team members. This includes all possible aspects of work-related activities such as reports, automation, team management, management of repetitive tasks and activities, and planning features.

With Smartsheet, it’s possible to tailor features and functions with fully customizable templates, custom-made solutions, and a wide range of integrations and connectors to pair up your Smartsheet project management system within the broader ecosystem. This type of flexibility allows for rapid scaling of your business. Smartsheet project plans and schedules can be designed as you see fit, to enhance collaborative efforts among team members, and standardize important elements of your project management system.

Among the many powerful features and functions available are strategic planning, budget tracking (planned spend vs actual spend, and full transparency of financial management), task tracking (accountability and control mechanisms), resource management (resource allocation, resource prioritization,) and scheduling, et al. All of this is geared towards making it easier to effectively manage tasks, duties, and responsibilities, resource allocation, and synergy among team members. Viewed in perspective, Smartsheet is a desirable project management resource.

2. Core Task-Related Features

The core task-related features are all encapsulated within the dynamic platform provided by Smartsheet. This user-friendly organizational and management ecosystem is designed to boost productivity across the board. The task management software is geared to achieve results as efficiently as possible. The ecosystem is fully integrated with a full suite of tools that can be accessed online from anywhere, at any time. Among the many essential capabilities and task-related features available with Smartsheet are the following:

• Fully integrated with a full suite of tools including Salesforce, Microsoft 0365, Google Apps, Jira, et al.
• Customizable dashboards and reporting functions for full analytics, tracking, and management of to-do tasks.
• Powerful collaborative features and functions for internal/external teams, with the ability to add attachments, include comments and feedback in real-time.
• Cloud-based functionality for instant task-related updates for remote teams based anywhere in the world, 24/7/365.
• Detailed scheduling capabilities for assigning tasks to key team members, to ensure synergy and project goal achievement.
• Mobile project management with optimal functionality on iPhone, iPad, and Android devices.
• Intuitive task list tools for enhanced productivity and immediate working capabilities.
• Tasks can easily be organized on a grid-like format, with timelines created with Gantt, and Kanban task boards. 

Smartsheet task collaboration features include a variety of work-related viewing options. These include grid view, calendar view, Gantt, or card view. It is possible to seamlessly switch between views for editing and working purposes. Easy sharing of tasks and work activity makes it easy to eliminate silos, and speed up collaboration. By setting up automated workflows, Smartsheet fulfills important functions for effective management of all aspects of your project. 

Clients get real-time, automated reminders to reduce the frequency of manual tasks and make it easy to customize accurate charts, forms, and documents. Information can be collated from multiple worksheets, with access to valuable insights and trends too. All of this information can be incorporated into real-time reports for up-to-date insights into project management functions. One of the biggest benefits of Smartsheet is that teams can work without switching between apps. All tasks are managed under one roof, within the ambit of Smartsheet’s core task-related functions. 

3. Updated to Evolving Needs

Smartsheet is designed with cutting-edge technology, allowing team members and managers to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in the project management arena. Full remote working capabilities are available, with a wide range of integrations designed for ease-of-use, real-time updates, and instant collaboration. With Smartsheet, technology, innovation, and dynamism form the backbone of the ecosystem that aligns organizational goals with team members, and effective management.

The following work collaboration resources are available:

• Recurring Task List
• Daily Task Manager
• Simple Project Task List
• To Do List with Progress
• Team Task List by Priority
• Guaranteed Action Tracker 
• Dynamic Portfolio Management
• Automation of Repetitive Processes
• Gantt Charts for Project Visualization 

Smartsheet is Ideal for the Following Types of Projects and Organizations:

• Finance
• Nonprofit
• Education
• Healthcare
• Government
• Life Sciences
• Manufacturing
• Consumer Goods
• Energy and Utilities
• Media and Production
• Live Entertainment Travel and Hospitality
• Architecture, Construction and Engineering

Smartsheet has broad-reaching applications across industries, sectors, and markets. It is designed for SMEs, with between 1-200+ employees, across all verticals. Currently, the following companies rely on the Smartsheet platform: Fox Sports, City of Detroit, Delivery Hero, NHS Tayside, Domino’s, JLL, boomi, McGraw-Hill, Spartan, Cisco, JPL, PNG, Apple, Pfizer, American Express, and many others.

4. Popular 3rd Party Integrations

Smartsheet is fully compatible with a wide range of third party integrations including the following: Microsoft Excel, Salesforce Connector, Jira Connector, Git Hook, Qlik, Hangouts Chat, Slack, Outlook, Tibco Spotfire, Quip, Workplace by Facebook, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft One Drive, Live Data Connector, Google Calendar, iCal Calendar Sync, Google Drive, Gmail, GSuite, Dropbox, Data Tracker, DocuSign, and scores of others. These apps can be fully integrated with the Smartsheet platform for effective project management.

5. Ease of Use

Smartsheet’s intuitive user interface is designed for ease of use. The company totes the science which makes the UI work well and the art which makes it look great. The platform is cloud-based, allowing organizations and teams to manage all aspects of projects, by streamlining operations and scaling development initiatives. G2 analyzed thousands of customer reviews, with niche project management software, high-performance, contenders, and leaders. Smartsheet ranked above the rest when compared to 152 other project management vendors including Trello, Microsoft Project, Airtable, and Monday.com. According to users, the ecosystem offers

insightful reporting, greater flexibility, a better user experience, and is affordably priced.

Plans & Pricing

Smartsheet pricing considerations make this project management solution highly competitive. There are three types of Smartsheet Plans, including the following:

Individual Plans

• Individual plans are priced at $14 per month, with annual billing plans in place. With individual plans, team management gets 10 sheets, 1 dashboard, 5 reports, and 10 free collaborations, among others.

Business Plans

• Business plans are priced at $25 per user per month. A minimum of 3 licenses is required for this plan. It is also billed annually. With business plans, teams get 100 sheets per license, unlimited dashboards, unlimited reports, and unlimited free collaborators. Other features include custom branding and managed groups.

Enterprise Plans 

• For Enterprise-level plans organizations can contact Smartsheet for further information on tailored options and pricing. Enterprise-level plans offer unlimited sheets, dashboards, reports, and free collaborators. Other features include automated workflows, charts, forms, proofing, document signing integration, custom branding, managed groups, single sign-on the directory integration, custom email domains, priority support, and financially backed SLA.

Customer Service & Support

It is possible to access a full suite of customer support options including help articles by category. Categories include accounts & billing, basics, automated workflows, sharing and collaboration, absent integrations, reports, connectors, mobile, work applications, Smartsheet control center, tips, and troubleshooting. Clients can access support representatives via online contact forms. The professionally-trained support agents work diligently to respond to user comments, questions, and queries with prompt responses. Customer support is available in many different languages, including English, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Japanese. Top-tier customer support is assured at all times.

Pros & Cons

Bottom Line

If you enjoy working with project management software that is reminiscent of a spreadsheet, Smartsheet is ideal. You will need to spend some time understanding how to use the special features and functions, but tutorials are available for this purpose. It supports automations, and is a dynamic workspace for managing your team and projects.