Smartsheet Reviews

Pros

I find Smartsheet really helpful for managing my work. It’s like a smart spreadsheet where I can track projects and tasks, and it’s great for working with my team and sharing files. I also like that it connects with other apps I use, like Google and Dropbox, so I don’t have to jump between different tools.

Cons

It might cost more than simpler tools, but it’s great for bigger projects. If your internet is slow, it might run a bit slow too, but it works better with a faster connection.

Pros

Smartsheet offers a wide range of templates that cater to various business needs. It has improved my organizational skills, helped me meet important deadlines, and kept me accountable for tasks that need follow-up. Moreover, it allows me to work even when I'm unable to connect to the private Wi-Fi required by some systems. With Smartsheet, I can access all the information I need without relying on my EHR. It also provides the flexibility to work remotely, whether from a coffee shop or outside on my PC.

Cons

Configuring Smartsheet to leverage its full potential can be challenging, and I recognize that I'm not using it to its fullest. I would prefer more detailed explanations over numerous YouTube videos on how to utilize each template. An in-built Smartsheet guide for maximizing integrations would be helpful, avoiding the need for external instructions. While short videos may highlight features, they often fail to show effective integration. The cost of attending the conference is exorbitant. Many colleagues who considered attending were deterred by the conference fees alone, not to mention additional expenses for flights and stay. As someone who frequents conferences, I find the cost prohibitive without the incentive of college credits or certification, particularly for individuals not sponsored by corporations.

Pros

Smartsheet is a good project management tool.
It helps you track your grouped dependencies and exported and clear GANTT chart

Cons

The sub-tasks were hard to manage within the tool or it wasn’t as intuitive

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Project and Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Switching to Smartsheet

Better project management tool that has features to help communicate ti the broad audience

Pros

Smartsheet's collaborative tools were very impressive. The feature of sharing sheets with team members, assigning responsibilities, and setting permissions ensured a synchronized understanding among all individuals and facilitated their effective contribution. By improving communication, the danger of miscommunication or duplicated efforts is minimized, which is essential for keeping the project on track.

Cons

Smartsheet's adaptability is a strong point, it can also result in discrepancies in how various team members configure and oversee their sheets. In the absence of explicit instructions, this might lead to a dearth of uniformity among projects, hence complicating the task of upholding a unified project management methodology.

Pros

The platform’s logical graphical user interface (GUI) enhances productivity by offering a clear and organized view of tasks, timelines, and dependencies. The layout is not only easy to understand but also customizable, catering to diverse project needs and user preferences.

Cons

Although Smartsheet offers various integrations, setting them up can sometimes be complex and require additional configuration. Some users may find the integration process less seamless than other platforms.

Pros

Love the new slick version of Smartsheet which allows me to cross function and collaborate with multiple users from different teams and also helps me set up a level-based permissions to access the sheets which I think is a great help for my business needs.

Cons

Some times on the filters, it doesn't fully function or filter out the wanted and unwanted data. Also, the same filters when applied sometimes mess up my entire data set

Pros

A powerful platform with excellent organizational features. I particularly like the ability to create timelines and easily switch between task and Gantt views. creating reports using filters and specific criteria is super helpful in seeing what employees are spending their time on and for getting prompt feedback about projects.

Cons

I wish I could sort by more than 3 criteria. Some reports I've made need one or two more levels of sorting or filtering than are available to really focus on what the report needs to tell me.

Pros

Easy to use with great collaboration features that allow for across team and client communication so everyone stays up to date on schedules or metrics.

Cons

I think the sheets and schedule features are a little more robust than their dashboard. Though all parts have steadily improved over the 5 or 6 years Ive used Smartsheet.

Pros

Simplicity and ease of use. It's a powerful and reliable software with amazing collaboration features and dashboards.

Cons

At times, it takes a long time for desktop app, Windows in my case, to load up.

Pros

Great for working with team members or vendors who traditionally worked in a spreadsheet to track project progress, as it uses a similar design, intuitive design

Cons

Not as many complex features as other task tracking systems, team members preferred other task tracking systems for this reason and wanted to switch

Pros

I love how accessible and customizable the product is. We're able to make it do so much to integrate various departments and help work flow across the organization.

Cons

Some of the features aren't carried from sheet to sheet when you save as a Template or save a project as "new", and having to reconfigure alert rules can be time consuming.

Pros

I absolutely love how quick and easy it is to use Smartsheet. The formulas have great documentation and it helps tremendously when trying to learn and accomplish new tasks. You can pull off amazing things if you sit down and build it. I was able to build a completely automated revenue and labor estimator that shows me how profitable each member of my team is.

Many of the applications we built, the community was clueless how to build it. We were able to accomplish some very unique dashboards & spreadsheets that make our lives easier. I can now make business decisions on a whim, without having to spend hours of research about the effect of one decision on our numbers.

Cons

I dislike how many features such as the dynamic view or the workspace deployment feature is locked behind an expensive addon. And when inquiring about customer service we were told it "isn't" a fit for us. But yet, Smartsheet cannot give us a demo to experiment or test them out?

Smartsheet is nickle and diming things a lot. Smartsheet is >not< small business friendly. It is really a shame because these tools are absolutely 100% amazing.

It also surprises me how little the community interactions are. There are many great suggestions for features that are standard in Excel and Google Sheets, that Smartsheet blandly ignored for years, and sometimes says "coming soon" and years later we still don't have it.

Alternatives Considered

Airtable

Reasons for Choosing Smartsheet

We also used AirTable, Google Sheets, and Excel. We made the switch because the sales team convinced our CEO it was a good move.

Reasons for Switching to Smartsheet

Our CEO made the choice, and it felt like smartsheet was going places.

Pros

The thing I like the most is the transparency or the collaboration. To be able to easily see what others are doing and manage them together, set reminders and send update requests is what makes our company run well.

Cons

I think there have been a few times that we have maxed out on number of lines. I don't know why that there is a throttle there, but that's probably my only complaint is that some of our sheets get large and max out!

Pros

SmartSheet is a tool setup in such a way the it can be tailored to your organisation and used for multiple functions, by multiple divisions. The speed at which they are improving the platform with new functions and features is beyond amazing. Any small to medium size business trying to improve in project management, ICT management, customer service, task management, resource management, team management (the list goes on) would largely benefit from investing in SmartSheet. The ROI is incredible and the ease of rolling it out through an organisation is simple due to the intuitive UI.

Cons

The only downside I see with SmartSheet is the permission levels. These could be improved with the ability to share sheets in bulk rather than just at a workspace or individual sheet level.

Alternatives Considered

monday.com and Asana

Reasons for Switching to Smartsheet

SmartSheet is so much more cost effective based on the number of features and how well it can be tailored to any company.

Pros

It is mainly used for the management of projects that occur frequently in the company. The main tasks of each project and the secondary tasks linked to them can be managed in detail and in a visual and easy-to-understand way, which is useful to understand the progress and bottlenecks of the project. It is nice to see alerts for overdue tasks.Additionally, a lot of templates are available that can be used for any project, which is very helpful.

Cons

The templates are perfect, but there were many times when I hesitated because I often wondered which template to use in the first place. I thought it would be nice to have a feature that would recommend this template for such a project.

Alternatives Considered

Jira

Reasons for Choosing Smartsheet

The user interface is good. There are several project management tools, but if you want to manage a project with a relatively long time period and detailed tasks, I think this tool is the only choice.

Switched From

monday.com

Reasons for Switching to Smartsheet

I used it to see the approximate schedule of tasks, plus set due dates for individual tickets. Gantt charts are often handled in duplicate with other tools, but we were able to minimize the burden because it was easy to create.

Pros

Every aspect of our sales activities is immediately managed through Smartsheet. Smartsheet serves as a central hub for all customer data entry for both our in-house and external marketing teams.

Cons

The customer service has a lot to be desired, with slow response times and ineffectiveness even when dealing with simple issues. There are a variety of aspects that might affect the overall usability, including visibility and user experience.

Pros

Smartsheet can be used to facilitate efficient project management. Using automation, we were able to pinpoint resource-intensive workflows and make adjustments there. Smartsheet's user-friendliness and lack of steep learning curve make it a natural choice for us to transition from our previous solutions. The technologies' applicability extends far beyond the realm of project management.

Cons

There is nothing about Smartsheet that I find wanting. By utilizing this system, we have been able to save numerous hours of work time for our staff. For a company of our size, purchasing licenses for everyone who needs them is a major financial burden.

Pros

I enjoy how smart sheet's shortcuts and key commands make it quick and simple to fill in the project's specifics. That many people may access the same document at once and make changes while receiving real-time notifications is a great feature of this program. I appreciate the ability to notify investors of upcoming milestones with a timeframe. Conditional formatting and color-coding for people and their statuses is a nice touch.

Cons

When using a gantt chart, it might be challenging to view all of the accompanying columns at the same time. Though I haven't looked at alternatives just yet, I appreciate being able to view both the gantt chart and the finer points of the project simultaneously. Navigation in a Gannt Chart is elementary, or at least it is for me.

Pros

Smartsheet is an amazing product and helps keep our whole company on schedule and collaborating in real time. It is really flexible and easy to start using.

Once you have used it for a while, you will want to do more and more with it, and there never seems to be a limit to what you can do. They are also constantly adding new helpful features. One that was really useful to me was a kanban view called cardview. But there is also classic spreadsheet view, gannt view, and calendar view.

In addition to sheets, you can also run reports off the sheets which filter the data down for particular users or departments. These reports can be editable or read-only. You can also look at your data in real time using dashboards.

We have been using Smartsheet for several years now, and we still feel like we are only scratching the surface of its capabilities.

Another great feature is that you can have unlimited free collaborators. These people can use the sheets/reports/dashboard and enter data. However, it is only the paid users who can create and maintain the sheets. Over time, you may find more people in your organisation want to be creators, and it is easy to add licenses as needed.

Cons

There's not much I can say negative about this software. On rare occasions there can be unexpected outages or loss of functionality, but that is very rare indeed. There are sometimes maintenance windows on the weekend which can last up to 4 hours at a time, but these are advised well ahead of time. I think the only business that wouldn't want to use smartsheet is one that operates 24/7. If you are a normal Monday to Friday business, smartsheet will be fine for you.

Pros

--You can easily switch between different views of the same data, e.g. grid vs. Kanban
--Dashboards and reporting are both powerful
--Growing number of integrations
--Commenting per-row is excellent
--Can be used as a simple spreadsheet
--Security/permissions are robust and intuitive
--Excellent training and certs available
--Forms feature is pretty complete for basic stuff
--Very extensive formula capabilities, almost like Excel
--The "business" pricing tier would actually be quite adequate for my group's needs, vs. the enterprise plan
--Nesting/hierarchy of rows can be useful

Cons

--No in-cell formatting
--Awkward multi-user editing, no auto-save, other users keep resetting views
--Reporting is difficult, meaning that you have to create separate complex reports instead of just saved views
--Not a true database or app builder
--Notifications system is wonky, delayed, and hard for new users to tame
--Very easy to abuse and misuse, even worse than Excel because you can add in the nesting/hierarchy (we have one user in particular that makes the most gawdawful sheets you've ever seen, partly because of the inherent Smartsheet interface)
--Attachments are pretty rough, not easily visible or visual, and no desktop app integrations (e.g. save a file from Word to SmartSheet)
--No concept of a "document" or app, only the spreadsheet motif; can't do notes or instructions very easily, for example, so people overload rows for this and that makes reporting even harder when you have to manually select rows
--Forms feature not embeddable or graphically complete with formatting to make it look nice
--Not clear how you combine formulas and forms without overwriting formulas at the bottom--I haven't figured this out yet even after years of using it
--Enterprise pricing is now forcing us to consider alternatives, including lower tiers of Smartsheet

Pros

Projects are easy to set up with the built in functionality. There are lots of built in templates that you can use. But we have found it most helpful to build our own templates. We really appreciate being able to add dependencies, working and non working days, and duration. Then the start and end dates fill in automatically. We have found that the learning curve is not nearly as steep for Smartsheet as it was for Microsoft Project.

Another really helpful feature is being able to use formulas in the Project Plan. Our team schedules our work using a points system. I was able to create formulas that take the number of points for that task and who is assigned to that task to create a point breakdown for each person or team assigned. We then use the linking feature to link the total points for the project, the points accomplished, and the status of the project to a master "Queue" sheet.

Smartsheet has special formula values available for children and ancestors of a task. So, we use a simple =Sum(Children()) formula to add up the points. Actually, the formulas end up being more complicated because we can test whether the row has children or not and do different things depending on the test. For instance, when summing the work completed if the task has no children, then the product of the percent complete and points gives us the number of points completed. If the row is a parent, then the formula sums the children.

Cons

For project planning the resources feature is not as helpful as it could be. The main reason is that if a staff is assigned to a row during a particular time, the resource function assumes that they are 100% allocated for that time. So, if you have three tasks that overlap, the resource allocations shows 300%. We have mitigated that by routinely filling in 30% allocation for each resource. This helps to take into account the fact that a task although it lasts a full week won't take up all the staff's time. One idea I have had recently--but haven't tried yet--is to make a formula that takes the number of points for the task and assigns an appropriate allocation number based on points per week.

The other feature that we haven't found useful is the "Critical Path." How the software determines what is on the critical path is a mystery. I'm not sure why it chooses some tasks that have dependencies filled in, but not others that seem to be just as important.

Pros

I love the Smartsheet Community who will help you find ways to adapt Smartsheet to suit each individual need you may have. I've been using the software for years and every time I've wanted to use it for something new we've found a way! Sometimes there have been delays due to the capacity not being there YET, but it's easy to submit a Product Enhancement Request.

There are updates and innovations ALL THE TIME and while they're not shoved down your throat, there's plenty of support out there if you want it, not only from the Community but also videos and webinars (live or recorded). If you've got the motivation and imagination then I think the possibilities are unlimited, without needing to be a programmer or have any coding knowledge.

Cons

There's not much I can say that's bad about Smartsheet. I find it slightly difficult that it's very US based and I'm in the UK, but that's true of most comparable software.

I'm also not keen on the Learning Centre as it sometimes assumes a level of knowledge that is beyond me and I find it incomprehensible! It's not a problem though as I can easily turn to the Community!

Pros

Cloud based - available everywhere to everyone
Flexibility - it's not only a project management tool, it can do most things that Excel can do, but often better. Specifically column formulae are a fantastic recent addition that enables sheets to become almost unbreakable

Cons

Nothing major. There are some minor gripes:
- Slack integration doesn't allow tagging of individuals, and cannot allow a variable to determine which channel to send the message to
- Cannot yet control heirarchy with formulae, I hope this function will come eventually

Pros

Flexibility: Smartsheet offers the flexibility to create customised spreadsheets, Gantt charts, dashboards and forms to meet specific needs. We can customise the platform to fit their unique workflow.Collaboration: Smartsheet enables real-time collaboration, with tools to share spreadsheets, files and tasks with team members, and to collaborate on projects simultaneously.Automation: Smartsheet enables task and workflow automation, using rules and alerts to send notifications and trigger actions based on certain conditions.Integrations: Smartsheet integrates easily with other project management, CRM, cloud storage and other applications to enable a seamless user experience and collaboration.Analytics: Smartsheet provides analytics and reporting capabilities to track and evaluate project performance, which can help users identify issues and make informed decisions.Overall, Smartsheet is a valuable project management platform for teams looking to improve their project collaboration, planning and execution, with great flexibility, automation and analysis tools, and ease of use.

Cons

Learning curve: Smartsheet is a complex tool that may take some time to get used to its features and interface. we may need training or assistance to fully use the platform.Limited customisation: Although Smartsheet offers many customisation options, some features may be difficult to customise to meet specific needs. we may also need advanced technical skills to make advanced customisations.Feature dependency: Smartsheet is a very feature-dependent platform that requires regular updates to stay current. We run into problems if we don't have the latest version of the application or if certain plug-ins or extensions are not compatible.Limitations of the free version: The free version of Smartsheet may be limited in terms of storage, project sharing and advanced features. We may need to upgrade to a paid version to access more advanced features.In summary, although Smartsheet is a very useful project management platform for teams, we encounter drawbacks such as high costs, a learning curve, limitations on customisation or dependencies on features and regular updates.

Pros

When it comes to effective project management and data analysis, Smartsheete is the platform that has it all. We appreciate how this platform has freed up our time and effort to concentrate on other projects, ultimately boosting our company's efficiency from the inside out. Smartsheet's collaboration features are among the most flexible, allowing team members to easily share ideas, assign tasks, and set due dates in real-time. In contrast to other platforms we tried, where it took too long to solve inconveniences while waiting for a response from the support, it has excellent support because they attended to all the requests we made for inconveniences presented to us in the process of adapting to it.

Cons

We have no significant complaints; the issues we encountered at the outset were resolved in subsequent updates. If anything, I would point out that the Smartsheet platform has a steep learning curve, which is to be expected given the breadth of its project management features, which ultimately streamline and accelerate the company's internal operations.