Smartsheet

Smartsheet

A screenshot of Smartsheet's user interface
Developer(s) Smartsheet.com, Inc.
Initial release 2006
Platform Web, iOS, and Android
Available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Russian and Japanese[1]
Type Project management, collaboration and productivity software
Website https://www.smartsheet.com

Smartsheet is a software as a service (SaaS) application for collaboration and work management that is developed and marketed by Smartsheet.com, Inc. It is used to assign tasks, track project progress, manage calendars, share documents and manage other work. It has a spreadsheet-like user interface. As of November 2014, Smartsheet is used by 5 million people at 55,000 organizations. It was initially unpopular until a redesign in 2010, which was followed by an increase in adoption and larger funding rounds.

Smartsheet service

Smartsheet is used to collaborate on project timelines, documents, calendars, tasks and other work.[2][3] It combines some of the functionality of Microsoft Excel, Project, Access and Sharepoint.[2][4] It competes with Microsoft Project.[5] As of November 2014, there are 5 million users of Smartsheet at 55,000 organizations.[6]

Features

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 it.[9] If a spreadsheet contains dates, Smartsheet will create 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] The software integrates with services like Salesforce.com, Dropbox and Amazon Web Services.[3][11] There is also a Smartsheet mobile app for Android and iPhone operating systems.[8] Smartsheet is sold on a subscription basis with no free version.[8]

History

Smartsheet's original user interface in 2006

Smartsheet was first introduced in 2006. According to the company's co-founder, Brent Frei, initial adoption was slow because the software was too difficult to use.[12][13] At the end of its first year, it had only 10,000 users.[14] The company began making changes to the software in 2008, eventually cutting 60 percent of its features for the purpose of making it more user-friendly.[2][12] Following the 2010 launch of the redesign, adoption grew to 1 million users at 20,000 organizations by 2012.[12]

Integration with Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Azure were added in 2014.[6] That October the Account Map tool was introduced, which uses an algorithm to visualize the flow of work across groups of employees.[15][16] In August 2014, version 2.0 of the Smartsheet iOS app was introduced. It made a spreadsheet-like user interface the focus of the app's user interface, whereas previously the mobile interface was different than the spreadsheet-oriented desktop version.[17]

In 2015, Smartsheet started introducing closer integrations with Microsoft Office products, in part thanks to changes Microsoft was making in their products to work better with third-party software.[18][19] In January 2015, Smartsheet added support for Microsoft's identity management software Azure Active Directory, which allowed users to log in to products like Excel and Smartsheet with the same login.[19][20] Users can also now make changes to smartsheets directly from Microsoft Outlook.[18]

Smartsheet.com, Inc.

Smartsheet.com, Inc. is a private company that develops and markets the Smartsheet application. As of April 2015, it has about 200 employees and is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington.[21] It operates data centers in Texas, Virginia and Illinois.[6]

The company was founded in the summer of 2006, shortly after co-founder Brent Frei sold his prior company, Onyx Software.[2][14][21] Initially it was funded mostly by Frei.[2] About a year after its founding, Smartsheet had raised $4 million in funding and had just nine employees.[14] By early 2012 it had raised $8.2 million in funding over three rounds and hired its first salesperson.[11][12]

After the Smartsheet software was redesigned in 2010, the company's revenues grew by more than 100 percent each year, for four consecutive years.[22] It raised $26 million in funding in December 2012[3][12] and another $35 million in May 2014.[11]

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ Form, Submitting This; The, You Accept (January 28, 2014). "Smartsheet Tips: Tips for International Users". Smartsheet. Retrieved September 12, 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strauss, Karsten (March 12, 2013). "Former Microsoft Analyst Wants To Disrupt MS Excel, Project". Forbes. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 Grant, Rebecca (December 3, 2012). "Smartsheet gets $26M to keep enterprise workflow under control". VentureBeat. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  4. ↑ Handler, Robert; Light, Matt; Fitzgerald, Donna; Jones, Teresa (April 24, 2015). "Gartner Names Smartsheet "Cool Vendor"". Retrieved September 16, 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Greene, Tim (April 30, 2013). "Enterasys boosts productivity with Microsoft SharePoint alternative". Network World. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  6. 1 2 3 H V, Yeshwanth (November 27, 2014). "Smartsheet: The Next-Gen Spreadsheet" (PDF). CIO Review. Retrieved September 12, 2015.
  7. 1 2 Lawton, Christopher (June 7, 2008). "Keeping Track of Business". WSJ. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Cassavoy, Liane (November 5, 2014). "Project management apps: How three popular picks stack up". PCWorld. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Moon, Peter (April 14, 2014). "A smart way to create the spreadsheet of your dreams". Financial Review. Retrieved September 12, 2015.
  10. ↑ Quinn, Alexander; Bederson, Benjamin (February 15, 2014), AskSheet: Efficient Human Computation for Decision Making with Spreadsheets, Baltimore, Maryland: CSCW 2014
  11. 1 2 3 4 Romano, Benjamin (May 5, 2014). "Smartsheet Wins Big Customers, $35M From Sutter Hill Ventures". Xconomy. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 "Smartsheet Grabs $26M After 'De-Enterprising' its Collaboration Software". Venturewire. December 3, 2012. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  13. ↑ Cook, John (May 14, 2015). "Smartsheet co-founder Brent Frei: How hitting the reset button on design led to success". GeekWire. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  14. 1 2 3 Cook, John (June 14, 2007). "Bellevue startup gets $2.69 million financing deal". seattlepi.com. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  15. ↑ Dignan, Larry (October 20, 2014). "Smartsheet steps up visualization game". ZDNet. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
  16. ↑ Perez, Juan Carlos (October 20, 2014). "Smartsheet, the project management tool cloaked as a spreadseet, adds visualization". CIO. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  17. ↑ Frank, Blair Hanley (August 20, 2014). "Smartsheet updates iOS app with new grid to help companies work on the go". GeekWire. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  18. 1 2 Demmitt, Jacob (May 13, 2015). "The Redmond bump: How one Bellevue startup is booming thanks to a friendlier Microsoft". Puget Sound Business Journal. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  19. 1 2 Levine, Barry (January 12, 2015). "Smartsheet integration with Office 365 highlights the 'opening up of Microsoft'". VentureBeat. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  20. ↑ "Smartsheet Rolls Out Azure Active Directory Support". eWeek.com. January 20, 2015. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  21. 1 2 Hack, Greg (April 2, 2015). "Arena designer Populous also manages events inside". The Kansas City Star. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  22. ↑ "100 Best Companies to Work For 2014: Midsize Companies – Washington and Puget Sound Business News Source". Seattle Business Magazine. July 2014. Retrieved September 11, 2015.
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