SmartSuite Review [2024]

SmartSuite brings collectively enterprise degree processes and duties with what it’s good to do day-to-day. It’s a piece administration device designed for at this time’s digital workforce, with automations and an simple-to-use interface that makes doing all your job simpler.

In case you are at present utilizing spreadsheets, MS Planner, or making an attempt to bodge collectively a number of methods, then SmartSuite is perhaps excellent for you.

Greatest for workflows

SmartSuite

Good, highly effective, process-led monitoring supreme for groups who need customization to construct their very own trackers, plans and workflows, with out the overhead of builders. Straightforward to make use of, your group will find it irresistible!

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Abstract

Product: SmartSuite

Value and plans: Free 14-day trial, then Group, Skilled or Enterprise plans relying on the variety of Options and data required. Begins at $10pm per person billed yearly.

Internet hosting mannequin: Cloud solely

Languages: The interface is accessible in 15 languages.

Web site: SmartSuite.com

Abstract overview of SmartSuite: When you’ve all the time thought managing on spreadsheets wasn’t sufficient however haven’t discovered an alternate, take a look at what SmartSuite can do. It’s a sensible strategy to combine processes and tasks, chat and calendars, paperwork and workflow. SmartSuite is an alternative choice to Airtable, Smartsheet and ClickUp.

What’s SmartSuite?

If Airtable, Notion and monday.com fell right into a blender, SmartSuite is what you’d pour out.

SmartSuite is a piece administration device that mixes easy mission administration options with processes and workflow automation. Your dashboard is made up of Options, that are like apps, databases or workflows (should you bear in mind Lotus Notes, it jogged my memory of that), however higher as a result of all of them combine to one another so there is no such thing as a duplication.

Every Answer comes with a Answer Information which tells you how one can use it and what it’s for. It’s absolutely customizable so you’ll be able to edit the textual content to supply a mini-how to to your colleagues.

Templates

With over 200 Answer templates out of the field, you’ll be able to mess around and get began shortly. The templates have been sourced utilizing trade professional enter so you’ll be able to profit from best-in-class processes with out having to design something from scratch.

Templates cowl industries like skilled providers, non-profits, well being and wellness, safety and plenty of extra. As well as, there are mission management-specific templates together with:

OKR
Program administration
Objectives and aims
Agile
Change requests
‘PM Lite’
Portfolio administration
Mission requests

And plenty of others. Each side of what it’s good to run a PMO has already been thought-through and created for you. Or you possibly can begin from scratch. Your selection.

Every template comes with a reside demo to see the options. Then should you prefer it, you’ll be able to load the template to your account. Begin utilizing it as is, or customise as you see match.

Let’s take a mission administration monitoring template.

Managing tasks

One of many issues I see with organizations is that generally they don’t have a listing of what tasks are taking place. It sounds easy, however sustaining that database can really feel like an overhead. In SmartSuite, you’d merely use the Mission Administration Answer to report all tasks, their standing, key dates and progress.

Grid view of all tasks

Tasks can hyperlink to milestones, deliverables, standing reviews and staffing, so you’ll be able to have a number of tabs or views into the mission database. And you’ll hyperlink to a different Answer (database/set of data) throughout the system. That is nice so that you don’t need to create workers lists for useful resource allocation in every Answer.

Click on into every report to see extra about it and to make adjustments. When you’ve used Airtable earlier than, you’ll really feel proper at residence, however SmartSuite feels prefer it presents extra for groups and has a cleaner UX. You possibly can add attachments proper contained in the report so all the pieces to do with that mission or process stays in a single place.

Including attachments

Collaboration is constructed proper in. There’s a Slack-style remark discipline and while you @ point out somebody they are going to see it of their notifications as one thing to do. I really like the very fact this takes a dialogue to one thing extra formal – the bottom degree of motion merchandise – but it surely means nothing must fall by means of the cracks.

When you want extra fields, merely add them. There are 44 totally different discipline sorts with information validation, so you may make certain your colleagues don’t kind garbage and mess up your plans.

Area sorts embrace:

Single line textual content and lengthy textual content
Single and a number of choose
Dates, date ranges, occasions
Numbers, counts, formulation, rollups, look ups
Foreign money
Percentages
Identify, electronic mail, cellphone quantity and handle
Hyperlinks and social networks
Recordsdata and pictures
Tags

Plus all of the mission administration options you’d count on like:

Assigned to
Due date
Period
% full
Standing
Time monitoring log
Checklists

Just about all the pieces you would wish to create wealthy information inside your data. The perfect of all these fields in SmartDocs.

SmartDocs

I actually preferred the SmartDoc discipline. This can be a discipline throughout the report but it surely’s a very free textual content part, with formatting. Mainly, it really works like placing a mini-Google Doc inside your report. Or consider it as a clean Notion display so that you can write in (with related / instructions), however linked to your mission.

Good docs device view

You can use it for a working listing of key factors from conferences, necessities, drafting press releases or coaching supplies, and a lot extra.

The problem I discover with Google Docs is that I can by no means discover the doc once more. That wouldn’t occur if my file was embedded within the report itself so all the pieces was in a single place and linked to anything that wanted the knowledge.

Equally, should you do want to look, SmartSuite’s energy search finds any report simply, even those you forgot you created.

Oh, and SmartSuite integrates out of the field with Grammarly.

Information views

We’ve got to be acutely aware that our groups work in several methods. And in my expertise, as an avid Gantt chart creator, some issues are higher suited to a Kanban, column-based interface. SmartSuite does each, and extra.

You possibly can create a Kanban view, calendar view, timeline and the basic ‘listing’ format. As well as, in case your information lends itself to maps and charts, you’ll be able to create these too. Every part could be mixed and offered in a customizable dashboard.

Timeline view

The timeline view could be primarily based on any of the date fields, however I count on the most typical software could be to make use of the due date to create a Gantt-chart-esque timeline. SmartSuite don’t name it a Gantt chart, and it’s actually not, though this characteristic is within the works so hopefully it received’t be too lengthy earlier than we get Gantt charts.

It jogs my memory of Workplace Timeline in the way it seems to be however it’s extra interactive and richer. Click on into an exercise and see the sub actions. Every of those could be assigned to an individual. As you full the duties, the % full will increase. The draw back is that dependency administration feels fairly guide. You possibly can hyperlink data (duties) to one another, however that’s about it.

My work view

The My Work view is your queue of real-time present assignments and duties. Anybody can assign anybody else work with a due date and precedence. If you’re assigned one thing, it should present up in your notifications and within the My Work view.

Your process listing will flag the variety of days to go till the duty is due. You possibly can even present a cheerful face/unhappy face to spotlight on monitor or overdue work. If you’ve marked a process as resolved, it should present up in your listing of not too long ago accomplished objects. When you’ve ever obtained to the top of the week and forgotten what you probably did on Monday, you’ll be thankful for that characteristic.

My Work view

SmartSuite Dashboards

Dashboards permit you to see the well being of a mission or collection of tasks. There’s a large number of widgets you’ll be able to embed on the dashboard together with:

Varied dashboards

Countdown (good to make use of to maintain monitor of time passing till a go reside)
Customized code
Google Suite recordsdata
12 chart sorts
Vimeo, YouTube and Figma belongings
Google Meet and Zoom – no must ship out assembly hyperlinks, it’s proper there!
World clocks (might have executed with that after I labored with my previous worldwide group)

You possibly can share the dashboard exterior of your group in a read-only state.

Reviews

When you’ve labored in mission administration for a while, you’ll have come throughout mission sponsors and shoppers who don’t wish to use your lovely dashboard and simply wish to see a report. You are able to do that too.

It’s simple to pick the fields you wish to show, set permissions for different customers after which share reviews. You possibly can export reviews as a PDF or ship them by electronic mail.

Automations and workflows

Wouldn’t it’s nice to take away a few of the routine work and system arrange? SmartSuite appears on a mission to try this.

Automation instance

It saves a lot time to have easy course of automation like:

When standing is ‘in progress’, ship an electronic mail to x
When worth adjustments from x to y, create a process
When ticket has been in queue for x days, change standing to excessive precedence and assign y to overview
When deliberate launch date is overdue, ship a notification to x
Ship weekly report back to x, y and z each Monday at 9am

You possibly can really construct out multi-step actions, saving much more time and maintaining issues transferring while you’re busy doing different work. In the meanwhile, there isn’t a good selection of automations, however they’re being launched commonly so I’m seeing them drip into my account.

Why is SmartSuite totally different?

I really feel there are two options that set SmartSuite other than different related instruments.

First is the workflow. It’s all drag and drop, click on and choose so that you don’t need to be a coding genius to arrange these automations. There’s a lot repetitive stuff in mission planning and admin, that having the ability to offload a few of it’s nice.

It’s not precisely a low code answer however it’s fairly customizable and designed for finish customers to have the ability to make it work the way in which they need with out having to contain IT in workflow creation.

Second is usability. It’s been constructed with the do-ers in thoughts. It’s not senior managers within the duties every single day, creating data, updating tasks, initiating workflows and collaboration on stuff. It’s designed to work for the folks doing the work.

Meaning you don’t want a PMO system admin or analyst to handle the product. I’m seeing this increasingly more in software program now: there’s a brand new era of merchandise which have loaded the again finish into the entrance finish so you’ll be able to add fields and many others with out having to return out and return into an admin/again workplace view.

So long as you’ve obtained the correct permissions, you are able to do all the pieces out of your ‘regular’ profile.

Apps

SmartSuite has a cellular app so you’ll be able to preserve linked on the go and all the time have your mission and course of information at hand.

App views

Benefits of SmartSuite

Listed below are the primary benefits of SmartSuite as I see them:

Create information or data as soon as and hyperlink them to all the pieces else, all over the place else, so no duplication of effort or syncing required.
Easy to make use of with so many alternative use circumstances, processes and functions.
No requirement for a central PMO admin individual to keep up the system.
Straightforward transfer from spreadsheets or different instruments so low change curve for customers.

It didn’t use to have time monitoring however now presents a time tracker template out of the field, so you’ll be able to monitor effort on tasks.

I can see how folks come for the mission administration options and keep for all of the all the pieces else that SmartSuite presents.

At the moment SmartSuite’s shopper base leans in the direction of advertising, actual property, development and well being/wellness, so an actual combine. So many corporations have the necessity to handle related processes whereas maintaining it versatile and tailor-made to their very own wants.

Disadvantages of SmartSuite

Listed below are the restrictions of SmartSuite:

No Gantt charts (but, as at 29 December 2023 this characteristic is being labored on)
Something you need that’s not a part of a template you’ll need to construct. It’s not daunting in any respect, however you will have to be ready to experiment till you’ve gotten your views and Options trying precisely the way you need them.
Automations are primarily issues throughout the product, however SmartSuite integrates with Zapier if you wish to arrange workflows or actions to instruments like Slack, your CRM, electronic mail advertising instruments and many others.

Able to attempt SmartSuite? There’s a free 14-day trial (no bank card wanted).

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