Smartsheet

My company was already using Smartsheet for basic task tracking when I started. Upon discovering how we could use dashboards, our utilization took off! We have now designed solutions for departments company-wide, improving management's visibility to workloads and processes. It's impressive how many problems Smartsheet has been able to solve.

Vorteile

- Ease of Use - No need to involve programmers to create custom solutions
- Versatility - customizable sheets and dashboards for different departments and needs
- Support - AMAZING user forum, help pages, support department

Nachteile

Row and cell link limitations - I bump up against the cell link limitations often, although I can work around them by saving my metrics into multiple sheets.

Satisfied. I manage >25 projects that vary in size and detail. I would not rely on any other project management program that I have used in the past.

Vorteile

Easy to get in, set up, and maintain small-medium size projects. Quick to learn, easy to use.

Nachteile

I would like more intelligence around the columns: 1) more specific formatting choices, like setting the duration to hours, separating effort and duration; 2) Predecessor columns that intelligently follow the task, not only the row number.

It is so easy to use. I love the fact that the developers create a training for the software and consistently reaches out to the organization to find out whether or not there is a need for additional training. I love the fact that you can do multiple types of documentation within Smartsheet it is extremely easy to create. This software has allowed me to eliminate the usage of various software‘s in strictly utilize this software alone, extremely impressive!

Vorteile

There is so much that I love about Smartsheet. The fact that you can create forms and that they have pre-determined templates that allow you to build out all kinds of documents. I love the fact that you can keep checklist and they have rules that you can create in order to email directly from the actual software. I also love that we have created a complete document tracking system with in Smartsheet with ease!

Nachteile

Honestly there is nothing that I have as far as a complaint with the software it is completely amazing and I think that it will replace various programs.

While I prefer Smartsheet for Gantt charts, or quick and simple spreadsheets due to its ease of use, I have been disappointed with all of the other marketed features, and would recommend Google Sheets in general, since it is similarly collaborative, has better options for in-depth formulas, customizing of sheets and automated emailing with query's and G-script, and is free.

Vorteile

Smartsheet is my preferred software for Gantt charts, and for quick & simple spreadsheets. The formatting features are especially effective, such as easy indenting and quick checkbox options that can be used with formulas. Gantt charts on Smartsheet are quick and intuitive with all the options I would like to have. Dashboards can be a nice way to have an overview with links to different sheets if you have a project with several documents, and are willing to spend the extra time and money to set it up.

Nachteile

The big Con with Smartsheet is that it lacks the in-depth features of similar spreadsheet software that is also usually freely available.
Conditional formatting the way you would like it to work can take a surprisingly long time, as it can take many conditions (often one per column per action) to accomplish what you would think would take a handful.
Automatic email sending from sheets sounds great but is still not very fleshed out, and options are pretty limited.
Complex formulas usually need to be done in several hidden columns or they can end up taking large paragraphs of hard-to-edit text and numbers due to lack of formula options. This can also make complicated spreadsheets pretty slow.
Bugs occur infrequently, but make me prefer to double check important sheets.

While as an overarching company, my employer does not use Smartsheet, I have continued to use it personally on my projects to track progress in simple to update, easy to baseline format. I have used Smartsheet in this fashion for years -- its a much needed tool to keep you my back pocket.

Vorteile

What I think that Smartsheet really does well is how easy it is to use it. It is very similar in function to Excel, but has a lot of the important features that you need to baseline and track a project of any size. Its a welcome deter from the intensity of other PM software like Microsoft Project, without losing essential functionality.

Nachteile

Smartsheet is very simple to use - but because of some of that scaled back UI, there is some lost functionality. Some of the tricks and maneuvers you have to pull for things like conditional formatting or cell types can be a bit off-putting. It's also sometimes difficult to tell where user error plays a role in mathematic mistakes. I'd like to see more effort put into these areas.