ConceptDraw PROJECT vs. Smartsheet

For small and medium companies or independent departments of large companies where usually an individual plans the projects this is the best tool without all the overheads of complex software like Microsoft Project and without any privacy concerns of all online project management tools being used today. Not that convenient when you want your employees to update timesheets, etc., as everything needs to be fed into the tool by the project manager.

The Smartsheet platform is extremely similar to Microsoft Excel, so if you are familiar with Excel, you will pick Smartsheet up quickly. Even if you aren't Smartsheet has a relatively simple user interface, meaning just about anyone can learn it. One thing to note is that the interface is that some may consider the interface so simple that they feel the need to look for more robust platforms. If you have a small to medium project that needs to be manages in a central hub, Smartsheet would be a great fit. If you have a very large project, I might consider looking into more advanced platforms.

Incentivized

• PROJECT is tightly integrated with Diagram and MindMap, the two other tools in the CD Suite. This allows me to do initial scoping in MindMap and then switch to PROJECT and go back and forth as new requirements are exposed and tasks are developed.
• For projects that entail the development of mechanical or electro-mechanical systems it is necessary to develop a topology of the system. By using MindMap I can define the required elements of the system, switch to Diagram to develop an initial layout of the components of the system and then switch to PROJECT to start defining the task to develop the system. Once the system has been defined I use CD Solutions to generate presentations that incorporate the reports and dashboards generated by PROJECT.
• PROJECT is cross platform (Mac and Windows). We are a Mac shop, so the ability to import Microsoft project and Visio charts and export to those formats as well saves a lot of heartburn when so many of our partners and potential customers are Windows users.

• The easy to use dashboard has enabled us get comprehensive view of projects across the entire business.
• It has streamlined internal communication with ease of sharing information across different teams.
• Smartsheet automates our workflows, enhances collaboration and ensures there are no data silos.
• I like that it saves time for us and ensures we spend less time switching between apps.

Incentivized

• We had to spend a good amount of time to understand all the features so some interactive built-in tutorials would have made getting started easier.
• The UI does not look so good in macOS Catalina Dark Mode and I often switch to light mode when working on this software.
• Multiple people working on the same project at a time cannot update as there is no way to synchronize changes so we put the file in our code repo but manually co-ordinate to make sure only one of us is changing the plan at a time.

• Smartsheet set up is similar to Excel, yet when you upload an Excel file, things like conditional formatting are lost. Smartsheet has its own conditional formatting, and you have to reinstate the rules. It would be great if those would apply automatically once a file is uploaded
• Some Smartsheet management and access rules can take some tweaking to work properly. This may be a case of offering more info to admins so they can apply these better and with more efficiency

Incentivized

Smartsheet has made my work life easier. Reduced my email significantly. Smartsheet and SaneBox have got me leaving the office with 0... Yes 0 emails in my inbox. My inbox would reach 150-250 email per day. Smartsheet brought that number down significantly and SaneBox took it the rest of the way. Do yourself a favor and check out SaneBox, too.

Smartsheet is very easy to learn. However, while I have been able to pick it easily, Microsoft Excel and Project super users that I have trained on Smartsheet get bogged down in the differences and can find it frustrating. Explaining the differences ahead of time and why Smartsheet is being chosen instead of a different software seems to counteract those reactions

Incentivized

Customer service from the ConceptDraw sales team is relatively quick and they do a good job of answering basic questions. However, the user base for ConceptDraw products is not huge so finding answers online for anything beyond basic help-file questions is difficult

Incentivized

They're a smaller company but they've always given great service when we rarely need to reach out. Pretty good online content but a bigger user base would help to produce more content in a self-sufficient community much as we see with Salesforce. To be fair we haven't needed their direct customer support very often. The sales guys are nice and not too pushy!

Incentivized

Work with the Smartsheet support team to get the best overall. If no one in your organization has used Smartsheet before, the support team will get things started. We had a couple of people who had used this product before and it was a great help in getting our framework together how we wanted to use it.

Microsoft Project is a typical Microsoft product - too much programming overhead, poor graphics, confusing and fussy interface. OmniGraffle is close to CD PROJECT but has its own fussy parts, plus it is a lot more expensive than CD PROJECT; it is in the middle between Microsoft and CD.

Smartsheet is a dedicated project management tool that is built on spread sheet principles. When compared to Microsoft's own offering, Smartsheet came out on top in some areas like dedicated project management features vs having to build custom features to Microsoft 365. However when you compare them on price, Microsoft 365 definitely has more value than Smartsheet.

Incentivized

• Inexpensive way to present a professional project plan when needed

Incentivized

• Our positive ROI has decreased the overall cost in project management as it reduced the amount of MS project licenses we needed.
• We have also seen a positive ROI on using the cloud storage and it automatically supports proper version control.

Incentivized