Microsoft Project vs Smartsheet

2019. Microsoft Project becomes user-friendly


Microsoft Project is, of course, the most famous and legendary project management software, but it can be hardly called simple and user-friendly, especially in comparison with a most of new cloud services such as Asana, Basecamp, Trello or Wrike. Microsoft finally understood this, and made a massive redesign of the system. As you can see, the presentation video is focused on simplicity (like even a child can use it). Nevertheless, the developers also managed to implement several new features: kanban board, resource management, budget analysis, and time and expense tracking. In addition from now use Microsoft Project as a subscription service for $10 per month per user.


2019. Smartsheet acquires Slope to help creatives collaborate



Smartsheet, the project management and collaboration tool has acquired Slope - collaboration tool designed for sharing creative assets. Bringing Slope into the fold will enable Smartsheet users to share assets like video and photos natively inside the application, and also brings the ability to annotate, comment or approve these assets. Smartsheet sees this native integration through a broad enterprise lens. It might be HR sharing training videos, marketing sharing product photos or construction company employees inspecting a site and sharing photos of a code violation, complete with annotations to point out the problem.


2018. Smartsheet got $1.9 billion valuation after IPO



Online project management and crowdsourcing company Smartsheet saw its share prices pop as they made their debuts on to the public markets. Smartsheet closed at $19.50, up 30 percent from its initial price of $15 and giving it a market cap of $1.9 billion. The company is coming to the market with net losses on its balance sheets, but evidence of strong revenue growth. Smartsheet reported a strong 3.6 million users in its IPO filings, with business customers including Cisco and Starbucks. The company brought in $111.3 million in revenue for its fiscal 2018 year, but as with many SaaS companies, it’s going public with a loss.


2017. Collaboration service Smartsheet gets $52M



Smartsheet, the service providing spreadsheet software that lets people set and manage tasks and work across teams of people, has picked up $52 million. The company currently has about 70,000 businesses paying to use the product, ranging from SMBs through to large enterprises. This works out to around 550,000 licensed customers, and “a few million” people who use it free of charge. Smartsheet was an early mover in that space, opening up for business in 2006 as an alternative to Google Docs, Excel and other spreadsheet packages on the market, with a firm focus on offering a way for multiple people to collaborate in those documents to use them more dynamically.


2016. Microsoft unveiles Project Server 2016, inpired by Cloud



Microsoft has announced general availability of Project Server 2016, which provides significant project and portfolio management (PPM) value to our on-premises customers. Microsoft says that its performance and scale are inspired by cloud - from an engineering standpoint, Project Server is built from the same code used to deliver company's cloud service. As for the functionality, Project Server 2016 release looks largely similar to the 2013 version, but it expands functions at resource management, into resource engagements with heat map displays, adds capacity to bring transparency to the interaction between project planning and line planning, removes the Resource Plan from the Project Web App interface as Microsoft Project 2016 expanded to include this function. Microsoft also released a content pack for Power BI Dashboards which integrates with its cloud-based Project Online offering.


2014. Smartsheet helps companies to visualize their teamwork


Smartsheet, the spreadsheet-based project and work management platform, is now making it easier for companies to understand how their employees actually work and to get better visibility into what’s happening in their companies. Ideally, that means tracking all the different projects and people involved in them in a company. With Smartsheet Account Maps you can see who runs most of the projects in a group, for example (which is great for when you ask for a raise) or who doesn’t (which isn’t so great when it’s time for your annual report). But you can also see the connections between different groups. By default, Smartsheet makes a basic map available to all users.


2012. Microsoft Project and SharePoint will join Office 365



Together with SharePoint 2013 (probably in early 2013) Microsoft will release its project management system Microsoft Project 2013. These two systems have become inseparable, because SharePoint is used as a collaboration layer under the administrative component of MS Project. With the new version, this integration will become even tighter. You'll be able to start a new project by creating a simple page with a task list and calendar in SharePoint, and only when you need more close control over the project you'll be able to turn on this project management in the MS Project. But of course, the main news about Project 2013 is appearance of the online version Project Online, that will be available in the Office 365 cloud. And, (like in case with new SharePoint Online), developers will be able to create their own add-ons and even sell them via Office marketplace.


2009. Project 2010 to become a part of Sharepoint



Today at the MS Project Conference in Phoenix Microsoft previewed the next generation of its project management system MS Project 2010. And the new version is quite interesting. It's generally known, that the main lack of MS Project is that it's not suitable for collaboration. Common users never understood its interface, and it never provided collaborative tools. Microsoft fixed this problem in its own way. First, MS Project will work only on top of SharePoint 2010 Server and will be integrated in it. So users will be able to create a project site (with Gantt Chart and task list) and easily share it in Sharepoint. Second, Project 2010 will be connected to Exchange Server and all the project tasks will be available in Outlook, Outlook Web Access and Outlook Exchange for Mobile.


2006. SmartSheet makes project tracking easy, and now it's free.



SmartSheet is a tool for tracking group jobs and tasks. It apes the user interface that many people use to track projects - the spreadsheet - but it's got features more like a work flow application. SmartSheet was far too expensive when it launched; $75 a month for five users was too much for small businesses to experiment with, and even too much for some middle managers on expense accounts at large companies. Today SmartSheet releases a free version. It will allow unlimited users into each sheet (project), but only 10 projects per user. In addition, it won"t allow attachments. Paid versions, starting at $25 a month, will allow more projects per user, as well as some attachments. Higher-priced plans will support more storage and even corporate branding. The system will also let users save projects as "templates" that can be reused by co-workers and made available to other SmartSheet users.