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The Challenge

Managing  an ever increasing number of external partners and advertisers, maintaining and analysing the associated statistics and forward planning was proving more and more challenging using Excel.   

The Solution

A move to Smartsheet had resolved many of their data management issues but they needed the help of experts to quickly design a smooth and efficient workflow that automated many of the manual tasks to be ready for new staff starting in January.  

The Benefits

Working over the Christmas period our expert consultants had them up a running with improved workflows and reporting which has provided data consistency, reliability and improved efficiencies.  

Testimonial

“The entire system works brilliantly, exactly the way I’d envisioned it!  We’re now basing our entire workflow around Smartsheet. Thanks to Richard, Viki and the team for their professionalism, knowledge  and reliability.  It’s been a pleasure working with them and we look forward to engaging them again in the near future” Jeremey Hunsicker

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We’ve seen a wholesale change in thinking by businesses large and small, both in the US and UK, all eager to embrace low cost, intuitive cloud solutions and the improved efficiencies they bring.

Excel has always been and will continue to be the tool of choice for deep number-crunching, but as a management tool, it has limitations.  Fast growth companies need real time information and a spreadsheet type solution that provides collaboration and visibility on any platform and device.

Resistance to change is common but those who have embraced new ways of working are now seeing the efficiency and cultural gains

So what are some of these winning solutions?

• Smartsheet alongside Excel and Google sheets.
• DocuSign for Digital Transaction management for NDAs Contracts and Sign off.
• ProofHQ for Reviewing any digital copy through to approval in real time.
• Microsoft 365 implementation and integration as a cloud based solution, means we are helping clients to merge processes to work together… at low cost.
• OverDRIVE provides an Internal Web Portal, that acts like an Intranet or Digital Asset Library and works beautifully in conjunction with Google for Work Apps.

What were our clients’ challenges?

“Skilled resources are not easily acquired, so we needed to provide the existing team with better tools to allow them to do more in less time and take away their repetitive processes, replacing them with intuitive solutions that were enjoyable to work with and got immediate results”.

“ As business grew fast, increasing orders meant we had to become more efficient to fulfill them.”

“We needed Real Time information to get out to our key workers who could be out on site, or in countries in different time zones and languages, so a tool that looks and feels just like Excel, takes uploads from Excel (or MS Project) then provides an almost endless list of new solutions not found in Excel Desktop or 365 was key”.

The solutions Smartsheet provided in response to our clients’ challenges

• Secure access of key data for dissemination and feedback  on any device. 
• Audit trail discussion on any row or sheet.
• Uploads of any file type for review and use. 
• Collaboration, Reminders, Alerts that solve a host of needs.
• Automated Reports and Graphs that provide Real Time status 
• Planning projects has never been easier and no “ology” needed. 
• Resource planning has never been easier 
• Even those who are hooked on MS Project find that working Smartsheet alongside for collaboration and feedback makes their lives easier and results quicker.

If you can identify with any of the above, contact us to arrange your free 1 hour consultation to discuss your challenges.  We’d love to hear from you!

Empower your business with smarter business processes

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By working together intuitively, these Apps deliver the full package of benefits to your teams, improving efficiency, collaboration and visibility on ANY Platform, ANY Device & ANY Browser

Smartsheet – a Work Management Solution, ideal for users of Excel who need to collaborate more efficiently

Smartsheet is an incredibly flexible work management tool that not only provides great solutions for users of Excel but is also capable of driving large complex project plans for project planners

Detailed project planners will be delighted to hear of the new upgrades, namely duration in hours and minutes, as well as critical path. These new features will bring Smartsheet to the next level in terms of project management and team collaboration, giving project managers and owners more control to coordinate even bigger, more complex projects quickly and efficiently.

For Smartsheet users wishing to fully benefit from these new features, see details of our Smartsheet training courses and online support sessions

Top Tip: Smartsheet is great for driving your workflows forward and provides instant access and integration with the supportive Apps, ProofHQ, DocuSign and OverDRIVE and Data stores… Dropbox, OneDrive, Box and Evernote.

OverDRIVE for Digital Asset Management (DAM)

OverDRIVE is a cost effective, intuitive, visual and smart way to provide users and teams with simple and powerful intranet web access to corporate data and information.

Many businesses report that access to their corporate digital assets is difficult, documents hard to find.  At last there is a solution, not just for Google users but Microsoft users too.

Like our other technology pillars, OverDRIVE works with any platform and any device.

OverDRIVE provides the ability to easily create project workspaces to manage the documents, digital assets, contacts etc., relating to any number of projects at any time.

Top Tip: Smartsheet can merge data into Google docs e.g. quotes, invoices,HR contracts etc.,  all visible via OverDRIVE. Proof reviews in ProofHQ can be accessed from OverDRIVE

ProofHQ for Proof Review and Approval

ProofHQ is an online proofing solution for Marketing & Admin teams of any size in any industry who need to deliver marketing projects faster and more efficiently.

Deciding to use ProofHQ isn’t difficult. It measurably speeds up project delivery and significantly reduces management time, revisions, errors and costs. Because, unlike email and hardcopy proofing, ProofHQ enables review teams to collaborate simultaneously on creative content.

ProofHQ simply streamlines approval workflow – and can be used across all media including print, digital and audio-visual.

Top Tip: Smartsheet can drive the workflow and track progress of multiple Proof reviews with live links to ongoing or concluded proofs, then on to the creatives or printers for output.

DocuSign – The Global Standard for electronic signature and Digital Transaction Management

DocuSign helps businesses of all sizes easily and securely sign, send, and manage documents in the cloud, with unmatched availability and legal enforceability, eliminating the hassle, costs and lack of security in printing, faxing, scanning & postage.

Eliminate Paper Clutter:  It’s time consuming and costly to print, mail, fax, and overnight documents and these processes are prone to error. With DocuSign, you can sign and send with the click of a button and gain instant visibility into the status of your documents. You reduce the clutter for you AND your recipients, whilst also lowering the environmental impact of doing business.

The Smartsheet DocuSign integration offers our clients further workflow efficiency benefits, e.g. send one person listed in a Smartsheet an envelope for signing which includes tenancy contracts or contracts of employment at the click of a mouse.

Choosing one or a range of our complementary work management solutions will provide you with vastly improved efficiencies, collaboration and visibility.

Integrating Smartsheet with your other Applications has been dramatically improved and now API 2.0  offers a whole range of opportunities to link applications together to remove even more steps from your traditional processes by automating your workflows and updating data in several places with just one entry.

Talk to us about Managing the Changes within your organisation and about application integration set-up and  onsite and remote training and consultancy.  We’d love to hear from you.

Request a demonstration or trial licences

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Ignorance may be bliss, until we realize there is something drastically more efficient and effective out there. Then, ignorance becomes a costly, time-consuming oversight. Case in point: Excel spreadsheets.

The traditional spreadsheet has been around for nearly 30 years and almost a billion people use them today. But, their usage has evolved from being a data analytics and number crunching tool with formulas and functions to a work and project management tool.

In fact, 60% of spreadsheets in use today contain no formulas. Instead, Excel spreadsheets are being used for list management, project tracking, and basic work coordination.

Excel may be one of the most widely used tools for work management, but is it really the right tool for managing your tasks and projects?

Here are five important questions you need to ask yourself before using Excel for your next project:

1.  Can my colleagues and I work on a sheet at the same time?

Excel is locally hosted, whether it’s installed on a server or on each user’s individual machine. This means that the file must be constantly synced or carefully sent around via email to ensure all members of the team have access to the most up-to-date version. If one person forgets to email out some changes, a whole team could be out of sync. Some people rely on using a shared server like Microsoft Sharepoint to ensure version control, but that process can be time consuming for users and only one person and can work on the file at a time. And unless everyone accessing the file uses the proper methods of Sharepoint (i.e. ‘checking out’ and ‘checking in’), then it becomes a moot point. Microsoft has launched its Office 365 version of Excel, offering services in the cloud, but it still lacks the advanced sharing and collaboration features that you need to truly work real-time with other team members and it only works for the Windows platform.

Solution: You need to make edits at any time, and update those changes for everyone else working on the same platform. And you need to have things like the ability to have more than one person working at one time on the project plan, options to start discussions, ability to attach relevant content files, and the option to link to content that lives on other cloud-based apps like Evernote or Google Drive. Most importantly, the tool you use needs to accommodate work done on multiple devices, with multiple platforms, from any location.

2.  Can I identify who made changes or additions to a file?

Excel sheets are constantly being modified and change hands across emails dozens of times a day. As such, it can be extremely difficult to keep track of where the project was six months before, let alone years ago, and identify who made certain changes and when.

Solution: Look for a tool that offers full project history and can automatically notify you each time someone makes a change, so you always know who is working on what.

3.  Do I have easy, customizable tracking capabilities? Or the ability to visually see who’s working on what and with whom?

Excel has no built-in reporting, so project managers need to manually generate reports and graphs. In addition, certain reports you can build in Excel (like Gantt charts and project roll-ups) may be beyond the skills and capabilities of some project managers.

Solution: Save valuable time with software that has one-click reporting and customizable tracking abilities. For example, the capabilities to identify work patterns, track employee productivity, and monitor tasks to help set individual or team priorities. You can even have the ability to create a visual workmap: a graphical, interactive way to show who is working on what, with whom, and with what content. This gives you a quick way to see what projects are getting the most attention, who your high performers are on the team, and the status of who’s engaged from other departments.

4.  Can I quickly view project status and progress in a dashboard?

Managers often need an easy-to-digest overview of what is happening. Excel does not lend itself to a quick understanding of project status. You would need to create additional views or reports to see summarized information from Excel, or sift through detailed information to find the one number you need.

Solution: Choose software that features a dashboard where you can view the most important information in one place. As an added bonus, look for a customizable dashboard, where you can choose what information shows up (reminders, assignments, to-do lists, or recent files).

5.  Can I create specific to-do lists for different team members?

Excel is great if you’re flying solo as it only shows one view, typically for the project manager. It doesn’t provide individual team member with his or her own to-do list for each project. And, everyone has access to the same information in one Excel sheet. An intern can see the same data as senior management and can easily make changes that aren’t tracked.

Solution: You need different views and different access capabilities for different people. The best tools allow you to customize what each user can or cannot see, and lets you distribute specific tasks and to-dos to certain people. It also gives you the ability to set up auto-reminders to each individual so they know when their tasks are due.

Save Excel for the Number Crunching

Excel has always been the tool of choice for deep number-crunching. But as a management tool, it’s limited to a list of tasks with columns detailing specific milestones or target dates. While that information is helpful, it just scratches the surface. Don’t hold back productivity and collaboration by using Excel for important tasks it was never made to do.

 Learn more about Smartsheet as an Excel alternative that will help you get more done, more effectively.

Request a demonstration, free trial or free initial consultancy or simply Contact us to discuss your needs – we’d love to hear form you!

The post Is Excel Right for Managing Tasks? 5 Key Questions You Need to Ask appeared first on SmarterBusinessProcesses.

Smartsheet enables you to manage unstructured work and build efficiencies in processes across teams—both internal and external, to deliver results that matter.

AppSheet links the data that’s stored in spreadsheets (Smartsheet or a combination of Excel, Google Sheets and Smartsheet) with the devices everyone uses every day and at a fraction of the cost of ‘Traditional Mobile App Development’.

As recommended UK and Worldwide Smartsheet Consultants and Resellers,  Smarter Business Processes provides  Smartsheet and AppSheet Consultancy to help you simply get work done !   We’re here to help with your Design and Development, Smartsheet optimisation, Training and Support.  

Whilst having the right tools is important, we focus on the People and their Processes first, which produces excellent Performance outcomes.

Let us help you Empower your Teams.         Enquire  about our Smartsheet and AppSheet solutions or Contact us to arrange a free initial consultation.  

See our latest Case Studies and Testimonials

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