Smartsheet

Smartsheet is a software as a service (SaaS) offering for collaboration and work management, developed and marketed by Smartsheet Inc. It is used to assign tasks, track project progress, manage calendars, share documents, and manage other work, using a tabular user interface.

For the company, see Smartsheet Inc.

Smartsheet
A screenshot of Smartsheet's user interface
Developer(s)Smartsheet Inc.
Initial release2006
PlatformWeb platform, Android, and iOS
Available inEnglish, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Russian and Japanese[1]
TypeProject management software
Websitesmartsheet.com

Features

Smartsheet is used to collaborate on project timelines, documents, calendars, tasks, and other works.[2][3] According to IDG, it is "part office productivity, part project management, part document sharing... [it] is trying to be the central hub for how people work."[4] Smartsheet competes with Microsoft Project and KSpreed.[5] It combines some of the functionality of Microsoft Project, Excel, Access and SharePoint.[2][6]

According to Forbes, Smartsheet has "a relatively simple" user interface.[2] The interface centers on "smartsheets," which are similar to spreadsheets typically found in Microsoft Excel.[7][8] Each smartsheet can have its rows expanded or collapsed to see individual tasks or large-scale project progress respectively. Tasks can be sorted by deadline, priority or the person assigned to them.[9] If a spreadsheet contains dates, Smartsheet creates a calendar view.[9]

Each row in a smartsheet may have files attached to it, emails stored within it, and a discussion board associated with it.[5][9] When a new smartsheet is created, notifications are pushed out to staff to populate its rows and columns.[10] As information is updated, other smartsheets tracking the same task, project or data-point are updated automatically.[7][8] The service also has alerts for when a task deadline is coming up,[9][11] and keeps track of document versions.[5]

Smartsheet can import data from Microsoft Office or Google applications.[2][5] It integrates with Salesforce.com, Dropbox and Amazon Web Services.[3][11] There is also a Smartsheet mobile app for Android and iOS operating systems.[8] The service is offered on a subscription basis with no free tiers.[8]

History
Smartsheet's original user interface in 2006

Smartsheet was developed in 2005 and introduced to the public in 2006.[12] According to the company's co-founder, Brent Frei, initial adoption was slow because the offering was too difficult to use.[13][14] At the end of its first year, it had only 10,000 users.[15] The company began making changes to the SmartSheet in 2008, eventually cutting 60 percent of its features for the purpose of making it more user-friendly.[2][13] Following the 2010 launch of the redesign, the adoption grew to 1 million users at 20,000 organizations by 2012.[13]

Integration with Office 365 and Microsoft Azure were added in 2014.[16] In August of that year, version 2.0 of the Smartsheet iOS app was introduced. The spreadsheet-like user, which was part of the web service, was introduced to the iOS app in this version; the developers had not been able to build this feature in the mobile version before.[17] In October 2014, the Account Map tool was introduced, which uses an algorithm to visualize the flow of work across groups of employees.[18][19]

In 2015, Smartsheet started introducing closer integrations with Microsoft Office products, following the changes Microsoft was made in their products to work better with third-party software.[20][21] In January 2015, Smartsheet added support for Azure Active Directory, Microsoft's cloud-based directory service that allowed users to log into products like Excel and Smartsheet with the same login.[21][22] This allowed users to make changes to smartsheets directly from Microsoft Outlook.[20] In 2016, Smartsheet introduced Sights, a configurable dashboard that shows metrics such as how a team is performing against key performance indicators.[4]

References
  1. "Smartsheet Tips: Tips for International Users". Smartsheet.com. Smartsheet Inc. January 28, 2014. Retrieved September 12, 2015.
  2. Strauss, Karsten (March 12, 2013). "Former Microsoft Analyst Wants To Disrupt MS Excel, Project". Forbes. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  3. Grant, Rebecca (December 3, 2012). "Smartsheet gets $26M to keep enterprise workflow under control". VentureBeat. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  4. Kepes, Ben (March 15, 2016). "Smartsheet launches productivity dashboards". Computerworld. Retrieved February 4, 2017.
  5. Greene, Tim (April 30, 2013). "Enterasys boosts productivity with Microsoft SharePoint alternative". Network World. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  6. Handler, Robert; Light, Matt; Fitzgerald, Donna; Jones, Teresa (April 24, 2015). "Gartner Names Smartsheet "Cool Vendor"". Retrieved September 16, 2015.
  7. Lawton, Christopher (June 7, 2008). "Keeping Track of Business". WSJ. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  8. Cassavoy, Liane (November 5, 2014). "Project management apps: How three popular picks stack up". PCWorld. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  9. Moon, Peter (April 14, 2014). "A smart way to create the spreadsheet of your dreams". Financial Review. Retrieved September 12, 2015.
  10. Quinn, Alexander; Bederson, Benjamin (February 15, 2014), AskSheet: Efficient Human Computation for Decision Making with Spreadsheets, Baltimore, Maryland: CSCW 2014
  11. Romano, Benjamin (May 5, 2014). "Smartsheet Wins Big Customers, $35M From Sutter Hill Ventures". Xconomy. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  12. "Smartsheet Review - Project Management Software". Tech.co. Retrieved 2019-11-03.
  13. "Smartsheet Grabs $26M After 'De-Enterprising' its Collaboration Software". WSJ. December 3, 2012. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  14. Cook, John (May 14, 2015). "Smartsheet co-founder Brent Frei: How hitting the reset button on design led to success". GeekWire.
  15. Cook, John (June 14, 2007). "Bellevue startup gets $2.69 million financing deal". seattlepi. Hearst Seattle Media. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  16. H V, Yeshwanth (November 27, 2014). "Smartsheet: The Next-Gen Spreadsheet" (PDF). CIO Review. Retrieved September 12, 2015.
  17. Frank, Blair Hanley (August 20, 2014). "Smartsheet updates iOS app with new grid to help companies work on the go". GeekWire. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  18. Dignan, Larry (October 20, 2014). "Smartsheet steps up visualization game". ZDNet. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  19. Perez, Juan Carlos (October 20, 2014). "Smartsheet, the project management tool cloaked as a spreadseet, adds visualization". CIO. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  20. Demmitt, Jacob (May 13, 2015). "The Redmond bump: How one Bellevue startup is booming thanks to a friendlier Microsoft". Puget Sound Business Journal. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  21. Levine, Barry (January 12, 2015). "Smartsheet integration with Office 365 highlights the 'opening up of Microsoft'". VentureBeat. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  22. "Smartsheet Rolls Out Azure Active Directory Support". eWeek.com. January 20, 2015. Retrieved September 13, 2015.

Further reading
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.