We’re very excited about the latest and very welcome features which take Smartsheet to the next level in Project Management.

Save time and gain greater control over your work with Smartsheet’s newest features.

With Gantt and calendar views on summary reports and enhanced update requests, you now have more power to choose the level of detail you want to share. You can send a project rollup to executives or share a single row to an external collaborator for a quick status update.

We’re also announcing a new self-service experience that lets you easily manage and configure accounts at any time with user auto-provisioning and authentication settings, for Enterprise users only.

Here’s more information on these new features:

Get Quick Updates From Anyone, on Mobile and Desktop, with Update Requests

Receive updates to key rows in a sheet or report from any collaborator, whether or not they have a Smartsheet account, by sending Update Requests. Choose which columns you would like to add to your Update Request, allowing contractors, consultants, clients, and others to add or change information with a simple form sent via email.

Collaborators are able to easily respond to update requests wherever they are, on any device. No login is required to update the rows and the collaborators do not need to be shared to the sheet.

You can learn more about Update Requests here.
To send Update Requests on desktop:

1. Highlight the row to be updated by clicking its row number. To highlight multiple rows, hold down the [Shift] or [Ctrl] key on your keyboard as you click the row numbers.
2. Click the drop-down arrow next to the row(s) and select Send Update Request.
3. The Send Update Request form will appear. Type in the email address of the recipient and click Schedule to send it on a recurring daily, weekly, or monthly basis, or to schedule the request for a later date.

To respond to Update Requests on desktop or mobile:

1. Click the Open Update Form button in your email and complete the Update Request in the vertical form that appears (on a smartphone or tablet, the form will open in a mobile browser).
2. Click Submit Update when you are done.

Note: Update requests must be created on desktop. We will release the ability to create update requests in the mobile app in fall 2015.

Roll Up Sheets and Projects into Summary Reports with Gantt and Calendar View

Consolidate key tasks and milestones across many sheets into a single overview with Smartsheet reports, now with Gantt and calendar view.  You can easily share the big picture of your entire portfolio with stakeholders or see a master calendar of all activities across multiple initiatives.

For more granular control over the information that is shared from a sheet, publish your report and share it with outside vendors, ensuring that they only see the high-level milestones.

You can learn more about Reports here.
To view Gantt and calendar on reports on desktop:

1. Use an existing report with two date columns or create a new report. To create a new report by clicking Home > Create New >Report. Then, walk through the Report Builder to specify the criteria for the report.
2. Once you’ve run the report, click on the Gantt or calendar view button on the left sidebar.

In the Gantt view, you can also choose to include % Complete, displaying a visual indicator of progress on the Gantt bars.

Note: Your report must have two date columns in order for the Gantt view to work.

Easily Configure and Manage Your Account at Any Time: Enterprise Only

For Enterprise plans only, administrators can use the new 100% self-service feature to configure and manage account authentication and user auto-provisioning settings. You’re in control of your account configuration, reducing time, labor, and complexity.

You can increase account security by explicitly restricting the options available to your users for signup or login. For example, you may want to restrict users to only use Google for their authentication. Choose one or more from the list of authentication options that include email + password, SAML, Google, and Microsoft Azure AD.

You can also intercept new users as they sign up for Smartsheet and automatically add them to an existing company account. Simply register the domains you own and choose to add new users as licensed users or non-licensed users. For example, all employees from “acme.com” who sign up for Smartsheet will automatically be added to an existing acme.com’s company account in Smartsheet.
To configure authentication and user auto-provisioning: 

1. Click Account in the upper left-hand side of your screen. Select Account Admin > Security Controls.
2. Click Edit next to Authentication to choose from email + password, Google, Microsoft Azure AD, or SAML authentication.
3. Click Edit next to User Auto Provisioning to disable or enable specified domains to sign up with Smartsheet and to add validated domains.

Save More Time with Smartsheet

You now have the ability to share the big picture view of your entire portfolio, get quick status updates from anyone, and manage your account settings at any time. Keep stakeholders updated on key tasks and milestones, while tracking the project details by sending Update Requests to internal and external collaborators.

To learn more about these new features, sign up for a free webinar on August 20th. 

For more information about this release, read our external release notes.

To ensure you make the most of not only this weekend’s feature upgrade but the recent upgrade to Critical path and Partial Days, talk to us about your:

• Smartsheet Consultancy needs
• Smartsheet Training requirements:   Getting to Grips with Project Management in Smartsheet 
• Or Project Migration:  Project Development Consultancy and Workflow Process Improvement

Contact us to discuss your needs – we’d love to hear from you !

The post See What’s New in Smartsheet appeared first on SmarterBusinessProcesses.

Duration in minutes, hours and weeks, as well as critical path, bring Smartsheet to the next level of project management and team collaboration. You’ll have greater control over project schedules, ensuring that your timeline stays on track and remains accurate. You’ll also be able to easily identify the most important tasks in your project, keeping everyone on the same page and meeting deadlines.

How to Benefit….There’s a lot to Learn…..Talk to us about:

• Smartsheet Consultancy
• Smartsheet Training:  Getting to Grips with Project Management in Smartsheet,   Smartsheet Discovery,   Advanced Smartsheet Super User
• Project Migration:  Project Development Consultancy  Workflow Process Improvement

Get in touch to arrange your  Free initial consultation  where we can discuss the change processes and how they will improve your workflows…. . Or  Book one of our training courses  for your management  users.  

Here’s more information about the new features:

Enter Project Duration in Minutes, Hours, or Weeks

You now have a new level of granular control over project schedules by specifying duration of tasks in minutes (‘m’), hours (‘h’), partial days (0.5d), or weeks (‘w’). You can even mix and match units, like 5d 2h or 3d 45m. Just type the unit of time after your duration and Smartsheet automatically adjusts your schedule, on desktop and on mobile.

These new duration options also mean that milestones will no longer be a full day — you now have the ability to add zero-day milestones to your project schedules. And if your typical work day is less or more than the standard eight hours, you can specify that as well, by setting the hours in a working day. Your whole timeline automatically adjusts so you can stay nimble and specific to your business needs.
To use the new task durations:

• In the Duration column in your sheet, simply enter a number followed by the unit: ‘m’ for minutes, ‘h’ for hours, and ‘w’ for weeks. For partial days, enter ‘0.5d’ or ‘2.5d.’

To set the hours in a working day:  

1. Toggle to the Gantt chart view (make sure your dependencies are enabled).
2. On the right-hand side, in the Gantt view, click the gear icon.
3. Under Dependency Settings, in the section called Working Days, click Edit.
4. Under Length of Day, enter the number of hours in the workday.
5. Click Ok to close Working Days, and Ok again to save your project settings.

Automatically Calculate Critical Path

In any given project, you may have hundreds of tasks and dozens of dependencies. And it can be almost impossible to identify the most important tasks — the ones that, if missed, will impact the entire project and its completion date. With critical path, you can automatically identify these critical tasks, the ones that you really need to worry about to make sure you meet your deadline.

With the click of an icon, all of the tasks that directly impact your project completion date will be outlined in bright red on the Gantt chart. The critical path will change in real time, reflecting any changes in live data. And, it will work seamlessly across desktop and mobile, and with any colour settings in your sheet.

To use critical path on desktop:

1. Enable the Gantt chart view.
2. On the right-hand side, in the Gantt view, click the far-right critical path icon (it looks like two red Gantt bars).
3. On the Gantt chart, the tasks that are on the critical path will be outlined in red.

To use critical path on iOS and Android:

1. Enable the Gantt chart view.
2. On the bottom of your screen, click the critical path icon (it looks like two red Gantt bars).
3. On the Gantt chart, the tasks that are on the critical path will be outlined in red. Tasks that are on the critical path will also be highlighted in red on your task list on the left side.

Note: In order to enable critical path, you must have a fully networked Gantt chart. In other words, you must enable dependency settings. 

Huge Advances for Project Managers

Duration in minutes, hours and weeks, as well as critical path, bring Smartsheet to the next level of project management and team collaboration. You’ll have greater control over project schedules, ensuring that your timeline stays on track and remains accurate. You’ll also be able to easily identify the most important tasks in your project, keeping everyone on the same page and meeting deadlines.

For more information about this release, read our external release notes. 

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

The post New in Smartsheet: Critical Path and Duration in Minutes, Hours, and Weeks appeared first on SmarterBusinessProcesses.