Smartsheet

Puntos a favor

This is the tool we use every day, every hour, to track all of our enrollments and clients. Our team monitors enrollments and other CRM tools don't give us the flexibility to track multiple events and data points. It's Excel but on steroids with multiple functions and features. We're using it more and more every day for reporting up to our management team on progress for our client events.

Desventajas

I'm not so good at the formulaic side of things and making sheets talk to each other, or building a dashboard, is not an intuitive process. There are not step by step instructions or visuals which is something I need personally. It's a lot of trial and error in getting things set up. When I first started, it was very expensive to work with someone who helped build the infrastructure base and looking back there are many things I'd have done differently if I'd understood it a little better. A lot of the consultation time was wasted in trying to get the person to understand what we were trying to achieve.

Puntos a favor

Very good with basic project management features. Kanban is great, and you can view data multiple ways (kanban, gantt, table). The workspaces tool is cool, it's a good way to organize reports and data. Reports are great for showing users only the data they need, and keeps them out of source data tables. There is also good cross sheet functions like you would see in excel.

Smartsheet is also one of the most widely available tools to be integrated with. Tools like Zapier make it easy to integrate with, and you can also upgrade to a live data connector to visualize your data in a tool like tableau.

Desventajas

Features can be way behind. They just introduced features like pivot, and group to analyze data. Their internal workflow tools are behind what's commonly available in the marketplace. And if you want to use a separate workflow tool like Zapier, you will pay to use it. Their row limit just went up from 5,000 to 20,000 in a sheet in 2020, which was always a limit of how much we could scale the tool.

Alternativas consideradas

Software anterior

Razones para cambiar a Smartsheet

Puntos a favor

The ability to share sheets and collaborate is absolutely essential between myself and my teams. I like that all of the Smartsheets that I have access to can be organized into folders for easy retrieval and love the ability to pin sheets or go to the most recently accessed to be able to easily find the one I'm looking for. They also often introduce new features, which is great. Also, the automation tools, like the ability to notify someone when a row or field changes, is absolutely key with the way we do business to ensure that everyone is always on the same page.

Desventajas

This is nit-picky, but I do not like setting up rules for a sheet, and then the email that is sent to people looks like it is sent from "me." I would rather have the email come from Smartsheet instead my email address because in many cases I set up the rules for others and it appears that I am emailing them about it but that is not the case.

Puntos a favor

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.

Desventajas

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.

Puntos a favor

My favorite tool in Smartsheet would have to be a combination use of automated reminders, overdue milestone reports, assigning staff to tasks, and running detailed reports to check on my team's current progress. Paired with cross sheet cell linking, index/match where needed, and Datamesh when running large scale reporting when conditional formatting may be needed is a bundle of brilliance. Simply a great batch of tools for the job.

Desventajas

No file renaming option. Limited sheet summary report functionality. Limited batch update tools to revise and align current project sheets. Lack of permission settings without additional purchased feature packages.

Alternativas consideradas

Razones para elegir Smartsheet

Razones para cambiar a Smartsheet