Smartsheet Love

Who can agree with me that Project Managers should be named defacto circus performers for all of the plates we spin? Sometimes it seems as though we not only spin plates, but we sing, dance, and dress up for our “performances” as well, all of which sound like solid circus qualifications if you ask me.

The number one question: how do we do it?

Tools. A whole toolbox filled with tools.

In the same way that a craftsperson uses quality tools specific to their work, the same is true for the discipline of Project Management. There are tools that are beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Some tools are specific to a particular type of project. There are tools that don’t pack a punch and tools that will knock your socks off. The key is finding the right tools of quality to include in your toolbox.

Smartsheet is a tool that I keep greased up and at the ready because I use it every day. Today I am going to share with you three of the key features of Smartsheet that help me spin all of the plates while my feet remain firmly planted on the ground.

Feature 1: Cloud-Based Creation & Collaboration

Smartsheet artifacts can be created from a web browser and are saved remotely. Smartsheet offers basic templates for Gantt Charts, Kanban boards, Forms, Task Lists, and more. Remote creation capability means that with a click of the mouse, I can create a new project plan or Kanban board and share it with my team instantly. Whether we are in-office or on a video call, each team member can access the document to make and save changes. It is truly real-time collaboration. The changes are saved in the cloud, and no artifact needs to be exported or downloaded. If you have ever used MS Project Server or had to save, send, upload, download multiple files to make an update, you know what an important feature remote collaboration is.

Feature 2: Automation

Tell me if this situation sounds familiar to you:

It is the end of the week (or month), and your boss is asking you for an update on a project you are managing. You have a lot on your to-do list today, but rather than being able to focus on your other work, you spend most of the day tracking down project team members to ask for updates. Emails and reply messages slowly trickle in, and one-by-one, you update the lines on your project plan. It is 4:58 PM, you’ve made the best updates you can, and you send your boss an update and hope that your information is as accurate as possible.

Ever been there? (Haven’t we all?)

Well, with Smartsheet, that headache can be a thing of the past. One of Smartsheet’s greatest features is its automation. There are many automation tools, but one that I hold dear is the “Request an Update” feature. Here’s how it works:

In your project plan, each row or task is assigned to a project contributor. If you know that you have an update that is due on Friday, on Tuesday or Wednesday of that week, you can push a “Request an Update” notification to all assigned team members, which will prompt them to update their assigned rows and tasks.

Not convinced yet? There’s more. 

If your reporting takes place on a specific cadence (weekly or monthly), you can create automated “Request an Update” notifications that will be sent to contributors at the designated cadence. You can set this feature up once at the beginning of your project and never have to send a nagging email again.

Feature 3: Show Off Your Work in Style

If Smartsheet’s automation features are going to help me keep my data updated, will it help me share that data with leadership?

Never fear, Smartsheet is here. Yes, it will!

Smartsheet has a variety of different “Report” and “Dashboard” features. Both of these artifacts allow you to take data from your project plan and create a clean, professional, thorough update document to share with leadership. The best part? When the Report or Dashboard is created, it is linked to the project plan from which you pulled the data. Because of this link between the two artifacts, the Report or Dashboard will automatically update with new information as it is added to the project plan. Automatically! That means that once the resource is developed, all you have to do is email or share the link to your Report or Dashboard with leadership when it time to provide an update (don’t worry, you can also export or print your updates for our old-school stakeholders, too).

If you haven’t caught on by now, I love working in Smartsheet. It is a user-friendly tool that is accessible to those just getting their toes wet with the software and has the teeth to give you metrics you need to guide your projects. I have simply scratched the surface of a few of Smartsheet’s features today, but the experts at the PM Suite are here to answer any questions you may have about this software. Trust me when I say that you want this tool in your PM toolbox.