Welcome to the Skillsfinder-Smartsheet focused Blog page

Smarter training adjusted to suit your real needs

At Smarter Business Processes we offer a wide variety of Smartsheet training courses and packages.

Our team of certified consultants provides training and remote support to clients around the globe, improving their Project Management, Workflow and Process Management.

Emma Stevens

Office Manager

Emma has 27 years of financial and customer experience and brings processes and order to our office.

Emma's customer service knowledge ensures all of our clients office enquiries are dealt with professionally, efficiently and quickly. She will leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of a query!

When not at her desk Emma enjoys spending time with her husband and daughter as well running Brownies and Rainbows for Girlguiding UK in her local area.

Etienne Mermillod

Software Development Manager

Etienne is a seasoned ASP.NET Core Full Stack Developer. He takes great pride in building world-class applications while carefully considering the needs of its users and ease of use.

Originally from France, Etienne now calls Canada Home, where he is part of SBP Canada as a member of the API Solutions Development Team.

Etienne is a well-seasoned traveler and has visited many countries where he usually takes the path less traveled in order to backpack around and soak in the local cultures.

When not coding away, you may expect Etienne to be playing with his huge and fluffy dog Indianna or gaming away on League of Legends

David Bower

Smartsheet, Airtable and AppSheet Consultant

David is a hugely experienced Consultant, Customer Care Specialist and Client Account Manager.

In his spare time, David plays guitar, is learning to ride a motorcycle and, when it’s not too cold, can often be found tinkering in the garage. He also intends to learn to play the piano too - one day

Debbie Sawyer

Chief Smartsheet Solutions Officer (CSSO)

BSc (Hons) Computing, ITIL Foundation, Smartsheet Certified User, Aligned Sales Certified and Professional Services Certified.

Seasoned Smartsheet consultant and Training professional, Debbie’s creativity, attention to detail, willingness to deliver solutions to fully meet customer requirements and her personable manner earn her excellent client feedback.

When not working, Debbie likes to relax by spending quality time with her family. Living in the New Forest sees her taking many walks through the woods and down to the sea fronts at Lepe and Calshot. Debbie is also a keen hula hooper and has been hooping now for more than 7 years! She owns at least 10 hoops and enjoys a great workout helping her friend to run a hula hoop fitness class.

Dr James Harris

Chief Technology Officer

An experienced IT professional, James' prior work spans diverse environments from the white heat of launching information systems in one of the world's busiest airports, to industry leading tech startups. He also has extensive experience as a Finance Manager. James brings a keen insight and and flair for problem solving to every project.

Outside of work, James writes comedy, and has had many television credits over the past couple of decades on shows such as Horrible Histories and Russell Howard's Good News. He retains a burning ambition to be as funny as his wife and daughter.

Ph.D. Biochemical Physics, IT and Accounting professional.

Gwen Rymill

Communications Director

Co-founder of Smarter Business Processes, Gwen’s multi tasking roles include ensuring our clients receive the very best in customer care, while responsible for sales and marketing and partner liaison. Just don’t expect to get the cup of tea she promised you!

Away from work Gwen enjoys cycling, pilates, tap dancing and just loves baking.

Richard Rymill

CEO

Co-Founder and Lead Consultant, Richard set up SBP in response to worldwide demand from businesses wanting to implement their own Smarter Business Processes. His rapidly expanding team of experienced Smartsheet and AppSheet Consultants and Trainers share the company's values of achieving improved efficiencies and collaboration by putting people first and releasing them from unnecessary repetitive activities so they can enjoy their work again and focus on what matters to them.

When not at his desk, Richard can be found cycling, swimming and when the opportunity permits, sailing and flying.

Business Process
Automation Consultants

Firstly, let me declare my interest in Smartsheet. Eighteen months ago, while researching cloud based project and planning solutions, task list, calendars, Gantt charts etc., with the help of a few colleagues, we concluded Smartsheet was the best on offer and sensibly priced, e.g. a medium sized company with 3 senior managers could have licences for £34.95 pm or £345 for the year and that would allow them to collaborate with unlimited fellow workers and clients.

Since then, I have been involved in helping a number of clients to implement Smartsheet and see the results, which are mainly focused on how Smartsheet has allowed them to collaborate across teams, with clients, contractors, as never before with flat spreadsheets.

The BIG question for many has been could Smartsheet, a cloud based solution, be used as a serious planning tool, despite the lack of some of the detailed resource planning available in the more traditional and expensive solutions. Microsoft Project is the typical benchmark on this.

The answer comes in from 100% buy in of users, who actually claim to LOVE Smartsheet, YES, LOVE!

This against a background history in many organisations of planning systems being implemented, often at great cost, but for a variety of reasons, they fail to get their users to BUY-IN to their regular daily use.

Given their time again, these organisations, would have maybe chosen a less capable system that achieved the majority of their requirements and was used with enthusiasm, in preference to one that COULD have given them 100% technical capability but achieved a poor uptake AND with the associated cost savings

How come Smartsheet is so well liked? They are constantly developing and improving the product in response to feedback requests and these solutions address real world problems, such as really cool ideas from Smartsheet on how to make our lives easier and get more benefit from the effort we put in at work:

Capturing ideas on a mobile web form

I use a Smartsheet web form to enter my business expenses as they crop up, mileage, food, drink etc and doing it on the Iphone keyboard is a bit small, so I tried this voice entry and wow! – I love this idea and wonder how come I haven’t used it before…

Good ideas have a habit of arriving at inconvenient moments, usually when pen and paper are unavailable or using a keyboard is perilous. A technology I use to get around this is Apple iOS voice to text. On the iPhone, whenever you’re presented with a text box iOS almost always includes a microphone icon. That means, when you’re on the go, you can record a new idea with the same ease as conducting a Google voice search. Read the rest…

http://www.smartsheet.com/blog/capture-ideas-mobile-web-form?s=10

Smartsheet Loves Mobile

Erik Rucker’s blog – May 24 2013 – 3:03pm – Add new comment

Today marks the release of version 1.2 of our native iOS app for Smartsheet. Apple users will get into the app and get their work done even faster than before with this latest update. We’ve made the grid more interactive, attachments & discussions easier to work with, and eliminated up to 40% of th… Read more

More ideas and case studies… We know Smartsheet is great for Event planning because the Yorkshire Mafia and many others have told us so.

See the article here… Project Manage your Event planning

http://www.smartsheet.com/blog/project-manage-event-planning

What about Estate Agents? They like it in the UK too, but here is a case study from the USA, what they call Real Estate…

http://www.smartsheet.com/blog/smartsheet-real-estate-lead-gen

What sort of companies can benefit from using Smartsheet?

Answer

Any company that would like to improve their planning and onward measurement of their results can benefit, so a system of continuous improvement can be implemented in the organisation. There really aren’t ANY companies that cannot benefit from using Smartsheet at some level.

Will our data be safe and will we have backups in the event of disaster?

Answer

Smartsheet has an impeccable record of Data security and system availability plus because your DATA IS SAFE, if your premises get washed away or fire damaged or your equipment is stolen, you only need your sign in credentials to access all your data from your new premises. So, the answer for many companies is… safer than ever before!

We would like to review our Project Management Methodology how can you help?

Answer

Working with our Partners at Project Plan Services we offer a comprehensive service of Consultancy and Implementation, plus advice on Microsoft SharePoint, Project Server and Project Online.