Smartsheet

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]

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]

• Bryant, Adam (December 27, 2014). "Brent Frei of Smartsheet.com: A Good Excuse Doesn't Fix a Problem". The New York Times. Retrieved September 13, 2015.

• Official website