One of the most popular features in Smartsheet is the ability to attach, access and share files in the context of your work.  Gone are the days of leaving the office, walking in your front door, and suddenly realizing the file you need to work on is saved on your desktop – at work.  

With Smartsheet, you can quickly access your work and all those related documents by attaching them from your desktop or from another file sharing system like Google Drive, Box, and Dropbox. As a result of organizing your files alongside the work you’re managing in Smartsheet, you’ll save time and never be caught without “that” file again. 

Many companies use Smartsheet to organize and share files. Massage Envy franchise owner D’Onn Genovese offers a great example in this case study. She uses Smartsheet as her human resources hub; each step of the new hire onboarding process is detailed row by row in her sheets, with the corresponding forms attached to each row. Documents match up with actions to be taken by both new employee and hiring manager.

Whether you upload files directly from your desktop or attach documents from file sharing apps, there are distinct advantages – and differences. 

Which approach is right for you?

Uploading Attachments

You can attach almost any type of file to your sheets – including images and PDFs. This is a great approach if you and your team haven’t fully transitioned to full-on operations in the cloud and need to share files from desktop software like Word, Excel and PowerPoint.  

To upload your files to Smartsheet, click ‘Upload’ and select the file from any location on your machine.  

Things to Know About Uploading Attachments:

• Uploaded files are copies of your original file stored on our service.

• Anyone shared to your sheet can access these attachments with no extra permission levels. 

• Clicking on the attachment allows you to open it with the right local application for the file type (i.e. .doc files open in your word processor, .xls open in your spreadsheet program, etc.)

• Once opened in your external application, any changes you make there need to be saved locally and then re-uploaded as an attachment back into Smartsheet.
• On certain browsers like Chrome and Firefox, you can drag and drop these files directly on a row to re-attach them quickly.

Attaching Files from Box, Google Drive, and Dropbox

Do you use Dropbox, Box or Google Drive to store your files rather than keeping them on your desktop?  Smartsheet syncs with these apps, too.  

You can save files from these programs to rows in your sheets by using the ‘Attach From’ option – or you can link to a website URL.  Using online file storage services is fantastic if you’re ready to move more of your systems into the cloud, or if you’d like to add an extra permission level to an attachment within your sheet.

Things to Know About Attaching from Dropbox, Box, or Google Drive:

• When you attach a file from Dropbox, Box, or Google Drive, you’re adding a link to where your files are stored in our partner services.

• Since Google Docs file storage service (via Google Drive) supports editing/creation within Google, changes you make and save there will be seen when users click on the Smartsheet link to the file. 

• Use Box Edit for editing in Box files. 

• Check out apps like WriteBox to edit files directly in Dropbox. No need to re-attach a new version of your file to your sheet. 

• With Google Drive, Dropbox and Box you have an additional level of permission control, on top of the sharing permissions set on your sheet.  You can adjust permission levels by file if needed.

Flexibility is the name of the game when it comes to attaching and storing files in Smartsheet.  Take some time to try out each system – or a combo of both – to see what works best for your team.  

One thing’s for sure, you’ll save time and cut down on confusion by storing documents, graphics files, and more all in the context of your work.

Til next week, dig in and explore!

- Support Team

Twitter can be a great tool, but as a busy project manager you may not have the time to identify the most valuable people and organizations to follow for your work. So to help you out, we’ve done the work for you.

Here are 10 excellent people and businesses to follow on Twitter. They each cover a different topic, but but all post consistently valuable takeaways on their feeds.

#TechinBiz
@techinbusiness

#TechinBiz is a highly valuable resource for people in just about any industry who are looking to integrate technology into their work. This twitter feed features quality content from their website, including articles and videos. They tweet multiple times per day so if you’re looking to have access to a lot of news and information, they are a good bet.

How you'll benefit from the following: Plenty of actionable takeaways, and news about technology tools you can actually use.

Beth Buelow
@introvertcoach

Beth, also known as the Introvert Entrepreneur, is a leader in all things that support introverts. We recommend following Beth because her advice is highly valuable no matter what your personality type. On her Twitter she posts relevant information on business, inspirational quotes, and links to her articles and blog posts.

How you'll benefit from the following: An entertaining and enlightening variety of content that will provide you with daily “Aha!” moments.

Drake Baer
@drake_baer

Drake writes about business, leadership and the workplace for Fast Company, and his twitter feed is basically a news stream of his posts, with occasional breaks for humor or word-wonkery.

How you'll benefit from the following: The people he interviews for his articles and quotes on Twitter are all people you wish you could meet in real life.

Elizabeth Harrin
@pm4girls

Elizabeth is the brains behind the blog, A Girl’s Guide to Project Management, and the director of the OTOBOS group (On Time, On Budget, On Scope), a project communications consultancy. Her twitter provides links to her blog posts, current events in project management, and conversations with her followers.

How you'll benefit from the following: It’s a great source for all things related to project management, and Elizabeth is a smart yet approachable expert on the subject.

Harvard Business Review
@HarvardBiz

This is the twitter feed of the Harvard Business Review. Tweets of links to their well-researched and well-written articles about business, management, workplace productivity, creativity, and more.

How you'll benefit from the following: If you want a quick look at what the smart folks at HBR have published as part of your daily Twitter newsfeed, this is the quickest way to get it.

Heidi Grant Halvorson
@hghalvorson

Author of Succeed: How We reach Our Goals, and writer for Forbes, HBR, Fast Company, Huffington Post and more, Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. writes about workplace productivity and getting things done.

How you'll benefit from the following: With articles like “What Happens When You Extend a Deadline?” (about why we don’t make good use of extra time) Heidi provides useful solutions and insights for your everyday work challenges.

Ilya Pozin
@ilyaNeverSleeps

As a self-described “Serial Entrepreneur,” Ilya is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades in the business world. He writes for Inc, Forbes, LinkedIn, and The Next Web on a variety of topics. On his twitter feed, he shares great tips on being successful and posts links to his articles published across the web.

How you'll benefit from the following: Ilya knows his stuff, and he shares it in small, digestible bites that work for super busy people.

Laura Vanderkam
@lvanderkam

Laura is the author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast and 168 Hours, both packed with every day productivity tips. She contributes to Fast Company and USA Today, among other publications, and her work is frequently featured in Fast Company’s series, How To Be a Success at Everything. On her twitter feed, Laura posts links to her published articles, retweets content from other thought leaders, and shares poignant thoughts from her day-to-day life.

How you'll benefit from the following: A consistent stream of productivity content that won’t overwhelm your feed.

ProjectManagers.Net
@ProjectNetwork

ProjectNetwork is the twitter feed for ProjectManagers.net, which provides information on current project manager job openings, new tools for project management, and daily tips for your career. This twitter account mostly posts content from the website, but is great for keeping up on news through their feed.

How you'll benefit from the following: Be the first to know when project management jobs are posted and be updated on current events in your field.

Seth Godin
@ThisIsSethsBlog

Founder of Squidoo, best-selling author, and writer of an insanely popular blog on business management, marketing, and leadership, Godin is one of the few “gurus” who can actually claim the title (although he doesn’t). If you haven’t met Seth’s unique brand of thought-leadership, he’s well worth the follow.

How you’ll benefit from following: Get forward-thinking ideas on the nature of the workplace, management, work and self-invention.

Know anyone else who’s a great follow on Twitter for project management? We’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments below.

In September, I did it – as part of Disaster Preparedness month, I finally put together my own disaster kit.  Assembling my emergency water, blankets, and mapping out my evacuation routes got me thinking -- not so much about natural disasters, but about staying one step ahead of the worst case scenario.  And, because all roads lead to Smartsheet in my world, I started thinking about some of the projects I’m managing with my team in Smartsheet.  What would I do if someone inadvertently deleted something -- and can I make an emergency kit just in case that happens?

Not to worry.  You can make your own Smartsheet emergency kit -- by backing up your data.

Who Can Backup A Sheet?

Anyone who is shared to a sheet, even as a Viewer, can request a backup of the sheet as often as once every 24 hours.

We recommend backing up your data at least every week. 

How to Backup A Sheet

Open your Home tab and then right-click on the name of the sheet you’d like to backup.  From the options that appear, select Request Backup. 

A backup is an Excel (.xls) export of your sheet data, with discussions on tab 2 of the workbook. When you request the backup you have the option to include attachments -- they will be exported to a .zip folder alongside the Excel workbook. 

When the backup file has been generated, it will be sent to you via email and saved in your Smartsheet account.  To open your backup from Smartsheet, go back to the Request Backup screen, and click the View Recent Backups button.

Backing Up Multiple Sheets: Folders and Workspaces

Save time by requesting backups at the folder or workspace level and get multiple sheet backups at once.  From the Home tab select Request Backup of a workspace or folder the same way you would an individual sheet.  

When you backup on a mass scale like this, a workbook of every sheet contained in your folder or workspace will be stored in a .zip folder.  

Workspace Bonus: Any of the collaborators shared to your workspace can access the backups you request, too! From View Recent Backups, you can see any backups from the last four weeks that you or your team have requested.

Backups are stored in your Smartsheet account for four weeks.

Other Tips for Regularly Backing Up Your Data

• Schedule Reminders for yourself to remember to create offline backups of your work.

• Customize the Notifications on your sheets and receive email alerts that reflect changes other collaborators make – that way you’ll always be in the know if something is deleted.

• If you’re part of a Team or Enterprise plan, set up automated backups on a weekly basis by selecting Schedule Recurring Backup.

Whew – the Smartsheet Emergency Kit is much easier to pull together than extra batteries and condensed soup.

Til next week, dig in and explore!

- Support Team

Today marks what would have been Stephen Covey’s 81st birthday. He was an educator, businessman, and the author of several books. His most popular book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide since it was first published in 1989. 

We think that Stephen Covey’s advice in 7 Habits is timeless and profoundly relevant to this day, especially for aspirational, productive people. Since you might not have had the pleasure of reading his book, we put together this simple presentation to honor Dr. Covey on his birthday and to share his insight.

Copycats rejoice!  This week we have tons of tips for copying information in Smartsheet.  Saving time and ensuring continuity are two of the biggest benefits to duplicating information in the app, and you have many options at your fingertips to do so.  Whether you want to copy the big picture or just a small detail, we’ve got you covered with five different methods to copy information:

• Copy an entire sheet or its structure
• Copy a row to a new spot in the same sheet
• Copy a row from one sheet to another
• Copy cell data
•  Copy between applications

So many ways to copy data, how to choose? We’ve pulled together a few examples for you to help illustrate when you’d want to use each method, as well as the steps you’ll need to take.

1. Copy an entire sheet

Helpful when: you’ve got a sheet that’s really useful and want to duplicate to save time and maintain process continuity.  You can copy your entire sheet, including the data, or just copy the structure of your sheet.

Some real world examples:

• Use your ‘October Sales’ sheet to create your ‘November Sales’ sheet.  
• You’ve created a project management timeline that works really well for your team, and want to use it again on similar initiatives.
• You’ve got a killer sheet / web form combo that you’d like to use again – like a registration sheet for fall classes with a registration web form that you’d like to use with your students for the next semester of classes.

How to copy an entire sheet:

• Click the sheet actions icon in your left toolbar and select Save as New.
• Use the form that appears to decide what information you’d like to duplicate from your old sheet into your new one, things like:
  • attachments
  • discussions
  • cell links
  • web forms
• Make sure to set Alerts – these won’t copy over from one sheet to another.
• Learn more in the Smartsheet Help Center.

2. Copy a row to a new spot in the same sheet

Helpful when: you need to copy all of your data on a row – not just a few cells – from one row to another.  Great to use when you have a formula that you’d like to use in many different places in your sheet – copying an entire row makes the formula relative to the new row number.

Some real world examples:

• You have a recurring ‘Board Meeting’ task from month to month, all tracked within the same sheet.  Copy your entire ‘Board Meeting’ row to each new month and simply modify the start date for the new month.
• You have multiple formulas applied to one row and want to duplicate it elsewhere in your sheet. Copy the original row to a new spot in your sheet and update the non-formula cell information.
• You have basic instructions detailed in a few rows, like new employee onboarding details, and you want them to be available as reference points at multiple points in your sheet.

How to copy a row:

• Start by clicking your row’s number to highlight the entire row.
• Use either the keyboard shortcut to copy (Ctrl + C, command + C on a Mac), or right-click and select Copy.
• You can copy multiple rows at once, just make sure they’re all highlighted.
• Paste by right-clicking or using the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + V, command + V on a Mac).
• Attachments and Discussions won’t be copied
• If you have hierarchy built into your rows, remember to expand it to copy the indented data.
• Learn more in the Smartsheet Help Center.

3. Copy a row from one sheet to another 

Helpful when: you need to quickly transfer some information from one sheet to another.

Some real world examples: 

• You have a standard set of instructions for every new project, with a budget document saved as an Attachment and a Discussion comment with notes on how to complete the doc.  Keep it simple by copying an entire row from one sheet to another.
• You’re planning multiple events with the same initial preparation steps.  Copying rows from one sheet to another ensures consistency.

How to copy a row from one sheet to another:

• Click the drop-down arrow to the right of the row you’d like to copy and select Copy Row to Another Sheet.
• Copied rows will show up at the bottom of your new sheet.
• Be sure to select Attachments and Discussions if you’d like them copied with your row, they won’t automatically move from one sheet to another.
• Formulas won’t copy over from one sheet to another.
• Learn more in the Smartsheet Help Center.

4. Copy cell data

Helpful when: you need to copy either the data, formula or link in a cell / multiple highlighted cells.

Some real world examples:

• You have a number of tasks that are all ‘High’ priority and want to quickly  mark them as such.  Save time by copying priority value from one cell to the next.
• You have an ‘Assigned To’ column and want to quickly assign multiple project tasks to a member of your team.  Copy and paste names and avoid re-selecting that name from the Contact List entry.
• You have a sheet with a column for tracking the cost of items, a column for number of items, and a formula that multiplies the two for Total Cost (a formula that is relative to the other cells on that particular row).  Copy the your Total Dollars formula down to new rows so your formula increments to new rows.
• You have a value calculated by a formula, say the Total Sales on June 1st, and want to only the value (and not the formula so the amount won’t change later).  In this instance, use Copy and Paste Special - Values.

Different ways to copy cell information:

• Single-click on the cell and copy with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + C (Command + C on a Mac) or right-click and select copy.
• Fill down using Ctrl+D (Command + D on a Mac).  When you’re using this method to copy information, be sure to include the cell with the data you’d like to copy as the first cell in your selection.  In other words, click on your cell with the data first, then shift+click on the last cell you want your data copied to.  This will fill the value down.  If the cell contains a formula, this will copy down the formula instead of the value.
• If you’d like to copy the value from a cell with a formula applied, and not the formula, use Copy and Paste Special - Values.
• To drag-fill information from one cell to an adjacent cell(s), click on the cell you’d like to copy.  Then mouse over the right, bottom corner of your cell.  The cursor will change into a cross hair, click-and-drag bottom of the cell with that cross hair and drag to copy info.
• Learn more in the Smartsheet Help Center.

5. Copy between Smartsheet and other applications

Helpful when: you need to copy cell data from Smartsheet to another application or vice versa

Some real world examples:

• You’ve exported your sheet to work with it offline as an Excel file while you’re on a plane and need to update your sheet once you’re back online. While you’re updating your offline copy, change the text or background color in the cells you’re working on to quickly spot them when you’re back online and ready to copy and paste your updates into Smartsheet.
• You’ve corresponded about a project through email with a colleague and bit of information popped up that you’d like to save in a Discussion in your project sheet.

How to copy information from one application to another:

• Only use keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V or Command + C and Command + V for Macs) -- the right click menu won’t necessarily work between different applications. 
• Learn more in the Smartsheet Help Center.

Give each of these a try and see what works for you -- you’ll be an efficiency wizard before you know it!

Til next week, dig in and explore!

- Support Team

Rather than hire a marketing coordinator, the marketing department at Eli Lilly Federal Credit Union filled the headcount with Smartsheet. "We needed a well-organized resource to rely on to keep us on top of the flurry of inter-departmental projects. Smartsheet has filled this role in staffing," explained Michelle Payne, communications and education manager for the large credit union. "Smartsheet helps us manage, collaborate and complete marketing requests from the rest of ELFCU – it's an integral part of our marketing team today."

Eli Lilly isn't alone – thousands of marketing teams are using Smartsheet to streamline processes and collaborate more efficiently including Behr Paints, Magnolia Bakery, the Port of San Diego, Habitat for Humanity and more.

We’ve pulled together some advice specifically for marketers managing their work in Smartsheet. Use these handy suggestions to save time, keep the big picture in mind, and stay organized even during your busiest seasons. (And we're just getting warmed up – there are many, many more to share!)

1.  Collect requests with web forms.

Ever feel inundated with website change requests or new graphics inquiries from all over the company? Tired of searching through your inbox to find the RSVPs for that upcoming conference – or even more frustrating, sifting through scribbled post-its? Web forms are a great tool to simplify and streamline request processes and work great for social media/content requests, data inquiries, creative briefs, and customer reference requests.

Web forms are forms built using the columns of your sheet as a base. They’re easy to create – just click the ‘Web Forms’ tab at the bottom of your sheet and use the Web Form Editor to customize the questions you’ll ask and appearance of your web form.  

Next, simply share the link to your web form with others to complete – once submitted, the information they’ve entered pops straight into the rows in your sheet. All those requests are finally centralized in one spot. Next, you can use your sheet to organize the requests, assign tasks, take action, and communicate results. 

A few tips for maximizing your web form use:

• Make certain fields required, so a request can only be submitted when it has all the information you need.  
• Use them internally in your organization, or externally with clients – the information all comes back to the same place, your sheet.
• Set an alert on your sheet so you’ll be instantly notified when a new form submission comes in – you’ll never miss the latest requests or RSVPs.  Learn how to customize alerts here.

2.  Use the Calendar view.

Whether you’re at the helm of your website’s editorial calendar or managing a big campaign launch, chances are you have due dates associated with tasks you’ve organized in your sheets. Switch from Grid view to Calendar view for a different visual layout of everything you need to get done. 

In Calendar view, you’ll see information from your Primary column reflected in the Calendar dates. Drill deeper into the row by double-clicking any Calendar item to access all of the row data. Here you can update your sheet without switching back into Grid view.

A few tips for maximizing the Calendar view:

• Drag tasks from one date to another in the Calendar view to update due dates.
• Take advantage of the visual power of a calendar.  Use Conditional Formatting to make certain categories from your sheet reflect different colors.  
• Print the Calendar view of your sheet and take it with you to a meeting or on the road for reference. 
• Email your calendar as an attachment to someone not shared to your sheet for an update.
• Publish your calendar to your Google Calendar or iCal and check in on dates without having to login to Smartsheet.

3.  Make your life easier with links.

There are three types of links in Smartsheet: cell links, hyperlinks to other sheets, and secure sheet links.  Whether you’re using Smartsheet to communicate with clients or keeping your department focused on a major launch, being smart with your links will save you time and stress.

• Use cell linking to create one master “roll up” sheet.  Whether you’d like a master view of all of the events during a major conference or all of the projects that your department is tackling each quarter, having one holistic view of important activity is useful for gaining high level insight. Cell linking pulls information from one sheet into another; when the cells in your source sheet are updated, those changes automatically reflect in every sheet linking back to that cell.  Check out this post for the step-by-step details for creating your own master roll-up.

• Add in hyperlinks to your other sheets– save time and give direction.  

Save time and make it easier for your colleagues to find multiple sheets with hyperlinks to other sheets.  You can use sheet hyperlinks in a number of ways:

Make your own Smartsheet index. If you want to cut down on the number of workspaces and folders you have, you can stay organized by keeping hyperlinks to all important sheets in one master, index sheet.

Keep each sheet in context by adding some “help” info in the column next to the sheet links.  A sheet like this is a great way to keep details organized when you’re sharing multiple sheets with a client.

Add links to other sheets to your massive project plans. Add links to sheets with messaging guidelines or customer reference examples to make project sheets that much more comprehensive.

• Use secure sheet links to save handy bookmarks.  With secure sheet links, you can save links to your sheets directly in your Internet browser as a bookmark or send them in an email to clients or agencies.

For more ideas on how you can optimize Smartsheet for marketing projects and processes check out these templates:

• Event Plan and Budget 
• Web Project Timeline with Gantt and Dependencies
• Marketing Quarterly Goals
• Client Creative Brief
• Tradeshow Planner with Budget
• Customer Needs Analysis
• Marketing Campaign Analysis Rollup
• Product Feedback Survey Web Form
• PR Coverage Tracker
• Website Change Request Tracker
• PR Agency Activity Tracker
• Event Registration Web Form

Sometimes, you just need to get things down on paper – even when you’re working in Smartsheet.  Whether you need printed PDFs to pass out for a meeting or want to discuss your project schedule with someone without having them log in to Smartsheet, knowing how to customize your Gantt PDF can help you out when you need to take things offline.  

This week we’re going to walk through a few different ways to customize your Gantt chart print-outs with five simple tips.  

Before you can print your Gantt chart, you need to create a PDF of your sheet.  Click the Print icon in the left toolbar  to get started.

• Tip #1: Decide which columns you want to include.  

By default, only the Primary Column of your sheet will be displayed next to the Gantt chart in the PDF. It’s easy to add more context to your print out, simply add more columns from your sheet.  Customize the columns that will print by clicking the blue Edit button under Options of the print menu.

• TIP #2: Print consistent pages. 

If you have a lengthy project, the width of your Gantt chart can extend across multiple pages of your PDF.  To ensure the rows align properly across the pages, you can adjust a setting in the printing options.  With the Primary Column consistently adjacent adjacent with associated Gantt bars to the right, choose the Fit to Width option from the Scaling section at the bottom of the Print Setup menu.

• TIP #3: Make your PDF legible. 

The longer your project is the more space its associated Gantt chart will require – so if your project extends over multiple months, it can looked really compressed in a Fit to Width PDF.

You can still fit your project on one page, you’ll just need to condense the timeline of your Gantt chart to make the Gantt bars smaller.  An easy way to do this is to track your longer projects in quarters rather than weeks.  With this adjustment, your Gantt chart will take up less space and will be easier to read on one page when you export to a PDF to print.

To quickly change the timeline display of your Gantt chart, use the Zoom Out magnifying glass icon underneath the Gantt chart’s header.  (Further control the timeline by Editing the Gantt Settings).

... Zoom Out from Months/Weeks view

... To condense your timeline to Quarters/Months

• Tip #4: Take a snapshot.  

When you’re working with a lengthy project schedule, you don’t always need to look at the entire project.  Print out a custom date range to hide bars from your Gantt chart that take place outside of the selected range, like your project’s completed tasks or due dates outside of the current year.  This is also a good option if the Gantt chart looks "squished" or illegible when you select Fit to Width.

When you’re customizing your dates, make sure to take note of your Gantt chart timeline when you select a custom date range.  The custom date range won’t reflect fractions ofyour Gantt chart’s timeline increment.  For example, if your Gantt chart's primary heading (timeline increment) is set to Months, and your custom date range is the last 2 weeks of that month, the entire month will still be included in the PDF.  To narrow the date range, use the Zoom In icon to change the primary heading back to weeks, and you’ll be able to print out a two week portion of your project.

You can also apply filters to your date columns to export a custom date range, or to other columns to print certain rows based on their criteria.

• TIP #5: Automatically email your PDF every day, week, or month. 

If someone needs to review a quick update on the project schedule on a recurring basis, schedule a recurring email with your project’s Gantt chart PDF attached. Click the envelope icon  in the left toolbar and select Send as Attachment.

Click the Options link to configure the PDF, and the Schedule link to set up the automatic recurrence.

Whether you need to head into a status meeting with handouts for your entire team, or take a print out from the last two weeks with you for quick reference, you can use these tips to print what you’d like in the best format for your needs. 

Til next week, dig in and explore!

- Support Team

Successful project management is made up of a number of factors: detailed planning and task tracking, smart delegation, exceptional communication, and strong leadership overall.

These 10 books explore all angles of leadership and productivity. From discovering your team's dynamics to advice from today’s most successful CEOs, to tactics to manage stress and make better decisions, these books all make the “must read” list for project managers and leaders of any kind.

Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work
by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

The ability to make decisions is key to successfully leading any project, and can be tricky thanks to the natural human emotions that pop up during stressful decision making.  The Heath brothers offer simple, decision making processes for their readers to help in all decision making situations.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
by David Allen

Being productive when you’re stressed out is next to impossible – a fact that David Allen addresses in this quick read. From organizing (and staying on top of!) your inbox to tackling massive projects, try Allen’s framework of “do it, delegate it, or defer it,” to maximize efficiency and find peace of mind.

In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies
by Thomas J. Peters

In Search of Excellence seeks to define the eight characteristics of excellent organizations based on a McKinsey study of 43 of America’s best-run companies in 1982.  One of the first business management best-selling blockbusters, this classic is a great read in understanding the evolution of management thinking and philosophy.

The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
by Peter F. Drucker

Are you able to “get the right things done”? According to Drucker, in order to be an effective leader, you must. In this work, one of the most influential management thinkers of our time lays out the five essentials to business effectiveness in clear language that’s actionable for any leader.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
by Stephen R. Covey

First published in 1989, Covey’s advice is timeless and profoundly relevant to this day, especially for aspirational, productive people. Covey challenges his readers to change the way we see the world – to change our habits and our lives. Whether you’re facing challenges professionally or personally, these simple steps will help you reshape the way you look at work and the world.

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
by Jim Collins

Collins identifies 11 Forbes 500 companies that have gone from mid-level performance to massive Wall Street success and then discusses the commonalities that helped these organizations down the path to greatness. In his examination of each company’s journey to success, Collins provides an easy frame of reference to compare your current company with the greats, and common-sense steps to take to achieve greatness yourself.

Jack Welch and the G.E. Way: Management Insights and Leadership Secrets of the Legendary CEO
by Robert Slater

Take some leadership cues from one of the greatest CEOs in recent history.  Few companies have transformed the way that GE did during the 17 years that Welch led the company, going from a manufacturing to a service centered organization. Slater takes a keen eye to how and why Welch was so successful and shares actionable insight with his readers. There’s something for every type of leader and manager in this in-depth look at one of the most successful CEOs in the US.

The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
by Patrick Lencioni

A crucial component of great leadership is understanding how your team works. Lencioni explores team dynamics in the fictional tale of Kathryn Petersen, a CEO placed in charge of a company on the brink of disaster. Through fable, details on Lencioni’s “five dysfunctions” of a team, and a questionnaire for examining the state of your own teams and steps to take to overcome shortfalls, Lencioni’s book is an essential for any manager.

Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management
by Scott Berkun

Composed of essays rather than a giant reference book, this Microsoft veteran takes his readers through nine years of experience leading projects. Berkun’s focus on philosophy and theory rather than project management specifics makes his advice relatable for technical and non-technical readers alike.  Plus, his personal tone and real-life experience makes his advice relatable no matter your experience and background.

Agile Estimating and Planning
by Mike Cohn

Leading a complicated project with a high uncertainty factor? You’re not alone – and Cohn has plenty of steady advice to help you succeed in planning, estimating, and scheduling projects when the stakes are high. Cohn argues that without agile estimating and planning, agile projects would not be possible – and then shows you how to make it all happen, keeping agile software development and the supporting theories easy for anyone to understand.

Try Smartsheet's online project management software for free for 30 days. 

With the Project Management Software industry now over $1 billion with hundreds of competitive solutions, it's not difficult to understand why companies struggle choosing a solution. To give buyers guidance, Capterra researched Project Management solutions in their online directory to compile a list of the most popular tools in a "Top 20 Project Management Software" list. To do this, they used a popularity index that takes into account a number of factors including each product's number of customers, number of users, and social presence.

Here's what Capterra had to say about their popularity index: "We recognize that each of the three overall components is imperfect, but when combined the end result is an excellent representation of overall popularity and, we daresay, true market share." 

That said, Smartsheet made the list at #4.

Check out the infographic they pulled together with the results

Read more on Capterra's blog.

We’re excited to announce that a better, faster experience attaching files from Google Drive is here. Being able to access your files from Google Drive via a new Google Picker directly in Smartsheet gives you instant access to all of your files.  Using Google and Smartsheet to get things done with your team just got quicker.  

Plus – our Resource Management Beta Program is now available!

Smartsheet and Google – The Power of Easy Collaboration

Hear from Alex on our Product team to learn how Google and Smartsheet work better together:  

With today’s Drive update, it’s easier and faster to:

• Stay Organized.  Instantly see all of the files in your Drive account without leaving your sheet. Docs, spreadsheets, slides or images, they’re all easy to find and keep connected to the work you’re managing in Smartsheet. 
• Work Together.  Drive’s real-time editing synced with Smartsheet saves time eliminating the need to attach new versions of your files.  No need to switch from Smartsheet to Drive & back again.
• Save Time.  Now, it’s faster to search for that file you’re looking for.  Switch between ‘List view’ and ‘Preview’ to make sure you’re attaching just the right doc.

Refining the Smartsheet / Drive integration allows us to deliver another experience that fits seamlessly into the other web apps you use to manage your work and get things done.  We’re proud to continue to partner and invest with Google, and our commitment extends to all Google Apps.  Whether you’re using Drive, Gmail, or Google Calendar, Smartsheet seamlessly works within the Google ecosystem.

Coming Soon - Simple Resource Management 

Need to resolve resource conflicts with other project managers? Want to see how your people are allocated across projects? Want to see overallocated people on your project? 

Smartsheet Resource Management is on its way -- look for an announcement soon. If you’re interested in early access to the feature, apply for the Resource Management Beta Program today.

What do you think of the updates and features to come? Let us know in the comments below.

The busiest time of the year is in full swing - and who doesn’t love to save a little extra time?  This week we’re featuring three often overlooked features in Smartsheet that can help you save a little time in your day.  Whether you’re looking to calculate a sum without a formula or want a different way to incorporate important emails into your work in Smartsheet, read on for a few quick tips.

1) Fill down information with Ctrl+D

Looking for a way to fill down data in your sheet?  Ctrl+D (command+D on Macs) is the unsung hero of keyboard shortcuts.  Use it to quickly copy information in your lengthiest sheets:

• First, click on the cell with the data you want to copy, or the formula you’d like to duplicate.
• Then, use your scroll bar to navigate to the end point (much quicker than dragging!)
• Next, shift + click on your end point.  This will highlight the source cell and all the cells in between down to the end point.
• Finally, use Ctrl+D to quickly copy the value down

For example, use Ctrl+D to fill down a formula in a sheet with many rows.

2) Instantly add up values without using a formula

You don’t need to be a formula wizard to quickly calculate data in your sheet.  Get a quick idea of how much you’ve spent for an event or where your team’s budget stands.  

Try this:

• Highlight the cells you’d like to sum
• With all cells highlighted, check the bottom right corner of your browser, below your sheet.  You’ll see COUNT: which will count the number of cells highlighted, SUM: which will reflect the total sum of your highlighted cells, and AVG: reflects the average of your highlighted cells.

Here are some extra tips for using this nifty functionality:

• You can quickly count the total values in an entire column by highlighting the column header.  Do the same with a row by highlighting it (click just left of the row number).
• Apply a filter to narrow down the data in a column – then highlight the information you’d like calculated for some more customized numbers.  

NOTE: When you have a filter applied and click on the column header, Smartsheet will calculate everything in the column regardless of the filter.

• If the cells that you highlight contain dates, you’ll see the oldest date and the future date as MIN: and MAX: dates, respectively.

3) Save emails as attachments

Try a different way of keeping correspondence saved in Smartsheet by adding emails as attachments to rows.  Just another option to keep everything you need all in one place.

For all you Outlook users out there – when you open an email from your Outlook inbox, you can save it as an attachment in your sheets.  Use File > Save As and select Outlook Message Format as the type of file to save.  Once saved, you can attach the email directly to a row.  When other Outlook users click open the attachment from your sheet, it will launch in Outlook.  Use this approach to attaching emails for more than a record of correspondence.  

Templatize emails you frequently send related to the process you’re managing in Smartsheet.  Save standard customer emails in your Sales Pipeline sheet, client contract communications and replying to customer requests with standard responses. 

Don’t worry Gmailers, you can save emails as attachments too.  Open up an email and use the Print option to save the email as a PDF (when you’re in the email message go to More Options > Print and change the Printer Destination option to Save As PDF).  

Just another way to keep everything in the context of your work.

How about you?  Do you have a favorite overlooked shortcut that we didn’t cover this week, that you just can’t live without?  Let us know – we’re all for making the most of our day, too.

Til next week, dig in and explore!

- Support Team

When some 9,000 people descended on Las Vegas last week for AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services put a stake in the ground and successfully positioned themselves as THE world-class IT infrastructure goliath. 

Through a combination of statistics, testimonials and dozens of infrastructure-oriented sessions AWS successfully proved their dominance of web services. Just how far ahead is AWS in this space? Here are 6 incredible stats from the confab:

1. According to Gartner, AWS has 5 times more deployed cloud infrastructure as their next 14 competitors have...in aggregate
2. In a day, AWS adds as much new infrastructure as they had used to run the entire Amazon business when it was a $7B business
3. 45% of AWS partners are also Microsoft certified partners
4. AWS supports over 600 government agencies and 2400 .edus
5. AWS’ security certification and compliance list is jaw-droppingly long. With every credential out there from SSAE16 to FedRAMP to HIPAA it’s no wonder they are the provider of choice to security-conscious organizations
6. AWS partner, Netflix, accounts for up to ⅓ of Internet traffic during peak usage times

Notably, AWS demonstrated that this dominance has been achieved not only by solving truly difficult challenges with best-in-class technology, but by ensuring customers are insanely happy. Andy Jassy, the head of AWS, delivered a superb keynote, but it was the rabid fan endorsements delivered by companies like DowJones, Suncorp, NASDAQ, Adobe, Netflix, and more that carried the biggest punch.

Customers were able to quantify and articulate the impact AWS has had on their businesses and the level of satisfaction - indeed, outright joy - it has brought them. Good luck to their competitors. It was powerful stuff and something all companies who aspire to leadership in their own markets would do well to strive to achieve.

Hats off to AWS for a solid conference and a truly impressive performance. By freeing Saas clients (like Smartsheet) from the burden of infrastructure management, they are enabling a greater focus on the core product. We look forward to what they have in store next.

As Andy Jassy quotes in his keynote speech:

Watch the keynote here:

Three years ago, Smartsheet was one of the first third-party applications available in the Google Apps Marketplace. At the time, we were a scrappy little startup with fewer than 10 employees and were looking for avenues to grow.

Google took a simple but effective approach to developing the Google Apps Marketplace:

• Provide an ecosystem of cloud apps that are designed to work together
• Ensure that users can sign in once and be connected to all the apps
• Increase efficiencies with great cross-application feature communication

It’s a winning formula for everyone involved – admins, users, ISVs, and Google.

Fast forward nearly 3 years to today’s update to the Marketplace. Where’s our business?  Our collaborative work management solution is used in more than 30,000 organizations in 160 countries – from small and medium-sized businesses to some of the largest, most sophisticated enterprises – including HomeAway, McGraw-Hill, Toshiba, ESPN, Sony Music, MetLife, Colliers International, Bloomingdales and Behr Paints.

We often get asked what role the Google Apps Marketplace plays in our business, if this channel has changed our expectations about the larger cloud ecosystem, and if we’re still betting on Google.

Short answers respectively: Pivotal, Yes and Hell Yes.

Why so confident? The Google Apps Marketplace as a channel is one of the most profitable for us – not only in terms of the initial discovery and acquisition of users, but also to keep the users engaged and drive growth through viral expansion. It is the combination of three aspects (acquisition, engagement, expansion) that makes the Marketplace an extremely valuable channel for us.

Why the Google Apps Marketplace (Really) Matters to our Business

Reason 1: Juicing User Acquisition

Users who discover Smartsheet through the Google Apps Marketplace tend to be serious users who are looking for real business solutions. In our case, they’re looking for collaborative project and work management solutions for their team or organization. Not only can they find apps quickly, but the simple single sign-on with Google Apps helps lower the barriers for them to trial Smartsheet. Single sign-on, coupled with rich integrations (Gmail, Calendar, etc.) helps us deliver a more streamlined experience for our trial users.

Why does this matter?

To business buyers, these integrations mean increased efficiencies, resulting in them buying larger group (larger, higher priced team) plans. Coupled with these bigger deals, Marketplace buyers tend to be higher quality trials for us. In fact, they end up converting at a higher rate – 4x higher than the average of all our other channels.

Reason 2: Driving Higher Engagement

When people discover Smartsheet, they tell us it’s vastly better than what they’re currently using (typically Microsoft Excel + email) for managing team projects and work progress. While Smartsheet retains the ease of use of a spreadsheet, it layers in several highly valuable collaborative functions.

One of those powerful and popular features is sharing files in context of the work by uploading files or linking to items in Google Drive.

This is where it gets interesting. Users from the Google Apps Marketplace tend to contribute on average 2x more attachments than our non-Google Apps users. By offering an easy way for our users to collaborate on their content and providing deep integration with Google Drive, we enable our users to transition from their traditional MS Office documents to Google Drive and Smartsheet.

Google Apps users who find Smartsheet through the Marketplace are more engaged users of Smartsheet, in terms of sheet use and even advanced feature use – making them more engaged customers who derive real value from the integration.

Reason 3: Google Apps Users are More Collaborative

At the heart of Smartsheet’s collaborative solution is the ability to simply share the sheets with team members, inside and outside the organization. When it comes to sharing and collaborating on work, we weren’t expecting users from the Google Apps Marketplace to be any more collaborative than users coming from other channels.

However, these users share their sheets broadly – 1.5x more shares compared to our regular paid users – both within their network and outside. So not only are they some of our most committed customers, they also perform a key role in helping us spread the word and attract new users to Smartsheet.

Looking ahead

The Google Apps Marketplace has also given us a new way to think about the value of an app directory and how to critically evaluate who we work with to grow our business as we deliver better user experiences. We entered the GAM with modest expectations but the numbers don’t lie: the Google Apps Marketplace is one of the best sources of business. So we’ll be doubling down on our work with Google.

The Google Apps Marketplace is a strategic investment for us. Yes, it's a highly profitable distribution channel. But more importantly, it's an easy and effective way for companies to find the solutions they need.

-Brent

Traditional project management is borne of the IT and manufacturing worlds, where monitoring resources and personnel hours are the key to success. But what happens when you apply project management techniques to the creative world of ad agencies and marketing firms, where the product is images and ideas?

Creative folks tend to approach things differently, to think with the right sides of their brains. So for best results, project managers should embrace right-brained thinking too.

Effective process for creatives

This sage advice comes from Catherine McIntyre-Velky, principle at Adept Creative Project Management, and Director of Operations at Go East Design in St Paul, MN.  Her agency works with some of the biggest ad agencies in the game – Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Fallon Worldwide, Arnold Agency, Weiden+Kennedy, to name a few – and helps them understand how to build effective process in the creative environment. 

It’s a whole different ballgame here. You’re dealing in inspiration and ideas, and that’s something that’s hard to marry to a deadline. As Catherine notes,

Designers, copywriters, and creative directors will nod and smile knowingly when they read that, but ad execs and agency owners will mumble and curse the creative gods.  After all, at some point the rubber has to meet the road, and you need to deliver a product to the client.  

So how do you project manage the seemingly un-project manageable?

Good Creative Requires Collaboration

In the manufacturing and IT world, a project is much easier to quantify. Your resources, your hours, and what you need to do to get from point A to B is relatively well-defined. Thus, project management in this world requires a task-manager approach.

PMing the creative types requires a different approach. This is more a mix of coaching, complimenting, and in some cases, plain old coercion.

To do it effectively, Catherine believes you must start by defining the ultimate business goal of the project.  Is it a branding campaign, or a one-medium project with a short shelf-life?

Scope is extremely important.  The bigger the project, the more collaboration you’ll need, as collaboration is the key to extremely good creative.

It can also be the clog.  Any creative will tell you that opinions about creative work are like fingerprints:  Everyone has one, and they all are different.

These divergent opinions are what make a project great, and it’s up to you to manage them all.  You have to help the team navigate, and bring everyone together at the right time.  “It’s not about writing dates down on a paper,” she said.  “You need to herd those cats and be emotionally invested in the project.”

Get Stra-Tactical

Managing the collaboration in a creative agency could be likened to coaching a basketball team. You must find a way to get a group of diverse talents to come together and work as a team. Instead of putting a ball in the hoop, however, you’re producing a breakthrough idea.

Either way, people score when they’re in their comfort zone. Catherine wouldn’t want a world-renowned creative director or a highly-paid copywriter worrying about filling in forms, routing materials or other such PM-oriented details.  “We want to give them as much creative time as possible,” she said.

In this environment, a PM becomes what Catherine calls “stra-tactical.”  This is a nuanced blend of strategy and tactics that you’ll use to get things done.  “A wall can’t stop you,” she explained.  “It’s up to you to find out how to tip over the wall, or climb over it.  You have to have that kind of mindset.”

You’ll also be involved with a fair amount of deal-making. Catherine often negotiates with the team to get what she needs, when she needs it.  “I tell them if they can just punch through this job quickly, I’ll make sure the next project they get is the big juicy one everyone is hoping for.”

If you think that sounds an awful lot like a bribe, you’re right. Using these tactics will depend entirely on the audience, as different members of the team respond to different prompts.

• A creative director will want to know you’re doing everything you can to help the team perform at their best.
• An ad exec will want to know that you will work with them, even if they’re arriving at the midnight hour with a project.
• A copywriter or a designer will want – well, something to eat.  Catherine recalls promising a copywriter a six-pack of craft beer, and getting results.

In any case, empathy is paramount.  If you’re doing your job well, you’re going to be working with virtually everyone in the agency.  “You have to know what their weak spots are, or their boiling points,” Catherine said.  “You have to speak the currency of the individual.”

What is the Ideal PM for the Creative World?

Working at a creative agency isn’t the right fit for every project manager. It requires a sense of selflessness, and an underlying desire to see a job done well. You have to be happy with a behind-the-scenes job.  Move mountains, but keep it under the radar.

It also requires less rigidity than you’d see in the IT or manufacturing world.  With these organic solutions, you simply can’t predict the problems you’re going to encounter. Either you roll with it, or it will roll over you.

You must be an excellent communicator; supremely organized; intuitive; and have a high “EQ” or emotional understanding.  “So many soft skills take precedence,” Catherine said.  “It’s not a job for everyone.”

You also have to be committed to managing the project yourself, and not count on the latest and greatest project management software to do it for you. “The technologies that exist are awesome,” she said. “But they are only tools.”

As a consultant to creative agencies, Catherine is repeatedly asked about project management tools.  She’s worked with Basecamp, Social Bridge, Workamijig, and other proprietary models.  She next plans to take a look at SmartSheet.

“You want something that’s nimble and quick,” she said. “The trick is to keep it simple.” As is the case with all the other requirements for a creative project manager, you really don’t have time to analyze all the bells and whistles on a piece of software.

Regardless of which tool you choose, know that project managing the right-brained workforce is no easy task.  This is a world that’s more subjective, that prefers the qualitative to the quantitative. You’re forced to rely more on your wits, and to coach rather than command.

If we had to sum up the best way to project manage the right brain world?  You guessed it: Get creative.

Catherine McIntyre-Velky, a principal at Adept Creative Project Management and the Director of Operations at Go East Design in St. Paul, MN. Find out more about ADEPT and their workshops at adeptcpm.com.

Spreadsheets are supposed to help you organize and track information, so you can see your work accurately and act on it accordingly. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way.

DILBERT © 2007 Scott Adams. Used By permission of UNIVERSAL UCLICK. All rights reserved.

Here are 3 things you can do to make sure your spreadsheets actually show what you want to know.

1.  Put one thing under the other

One of the ways spreadsheets lose clarity is through “spreadsheet-creep”. This is when spreadsheets get wider and wider as more and more information gets tacked on horizontally. It often happens when people are trying to show how a bunch of subtasks are associated with one big-picture job. 

For example, imagine a team is working on creating a website. They need a home page and then 3 subpages. Their “spreadsheet creep” may end up looking like this:

Not particularly useful. We can improve clarity by nesting the subtasks (in this case, the subpages) under the master Home page like this: 

Notice how we further clarified that the entire project falls under the Design group? By “nesting” subtasks under master jobs, you get a much better sense of the overall project.

2. Less is more

The more information you try to cram in, the more people will dread reading your sheet. Here is a pretty tame example, but it’s already a lot to grasp, and certainly not very appealing:

Simplify all those notes by attaching them to relevant row or cell, so it’s right where you need it, without cluttering up the big-picture view.

Also, use color-coding and other formatting tricks judiciously. In general, a little goes a long way. 

3. Borrow other people’s ideas

When it comes to spreadsheets, there’s a pretty good chance that someone else has already  wrestled with creating a format that works for a project that is very similar to yours. Rather than reinvent the wheel, why not start from someone else’s template and modify it to suit your needs? It’ll save you a bunch of time, and it may even inspire you to think about your project in new ways as well.

To get started, click the button below and sign up for a free 30-day trial to try one of our awesome project management templates. And if you’ve got any great examples of project management templates you’d like to share, please write to me at carol.schiller@smartsheet.com. I’d love to see how you are creating beautiful spreadsheets too.

Marketers are peppered with questions all day long. “Did that event generate leads?”, “How’s the ad campaign progressing?”, “Has legal approved that copy?”, “Did you get feedback from the client?”, "What are the event hours?". With so many programs to lead and teams to manage, it’s critical that Marketers find efficient ways to coordinate work and keep their finger on the pulse of all activities – and no surprise that such busy professionals stay on top of it all with Smartsheet.  

A few weeks ago, we introduced a few Smartsheet best practices for marketing teams and today we’ve got three more to share.

1. Use Reports to quickly aggregate information.

Does finding a way to save 10 hours of time each week sound too good to be true?  The marketers at Animation Mentor have figured out how to make that magic happen, thanks to staying organized with Smartsheet.

They’re masters of tracking projects with Smartsheet, and one of their big secrets to saving time is pulling information together with Reports.  “Reporting is one of the biggest wins for our team,” said marketer Lindsay Talbot.  “Whenever I want to know the exact status of different tasks from multiple projects, running a report instantly pulls it all together.”

“For example, our art director is constantly fielding update requests from other departments – now she’s able to easily summarize her team’s activity by running a quick report across all of her department’s sheets,” said Talbot.  

Get a summary of everything your team members have been assigned to, and links to all the different sheets containing those tasks, with a little help from a Report. Pretty handy to be able to pull information together so quickly.  Plus, when you update information directly in the Report, that data will automatically update in each source sheet the Report pulls information from.

Some Reporting Basics:

• To create a new report, click the “New” tab near the top of your screen, then select ‘Blank Report.’  The Report Builder form will appear – use it to design your report.

• After you’ve created your report, it automatically runs each time you open it.  To manually run the report yourself, click the Run button in the Report Builder.
• You can share reports with others just like you share sheets.
• In order for collaborators to access your reports, they need to be shared to the source sheet, too.

For some alternative ways to use Reports, check out these tips from our Support Team.

2. Standardize your processes by saving your own templates. 

Magnolia Bakery uses Smartsheet as a main ingredient in their recipe for international expansion. An important aspect of the bakery’s growth is ensuring the continuity of their store layout and marketing materials, from New York City to Dubai, and everywhere in between.

Amy Tucker, project manager at Magnolia Bakery, saves her own templates in Smartsheet to make this happen. According to Tucker, using this templated approach to expansion is critical – there’s no guesswork involved when it comes to recreating the Magnolia Bakery brand and atmosphere anywhere in the world.

When you fine-tune the perfect process in Smartsheet – whether it’s a seamless product launch plan that keeps everyone on track or a calendar that keeps you on track to produce fresh content, save that sheet structure by creating and saving your own, custom template.  Share templates with your team to keep processes consistent across all of your colleagues (learn more about creating your own templates).

3. Keep teams organized and focused with Workspaces.

The marketing team at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum keeps hundreds of projects and assets organized in Smartsheet. Within the department are multiple teams covering advertising, events, promotions, creative services, communication and education.

Each of these divisions have their own Workspace, which helps keep everyone organized and ‘in the know’ even in the midst of a hectic season of marketing and event planning, according to project manager Christine Sonnabend.

Using Workspaces to keep your teams organized saves time. After setting up workspace sharing permissions, all sheets that you add to the workspace will be shared to your team automatically. These same sharing permissions apply to add any folders you add or templates you create in your Workspace. If it’s in your Workspace, you don’t need to worry about taking any extra steps to share with your team.  (Learn more about Workspaces)

There’s no time like the present to try out these ideas with your team.  Before you know it, you’ll be saving time and working together more collaboratively.

Do you ever feel like you’re spending too much time reminding your team of upcoming due dates? This week, we’ll show you how to automate reminders and customize individual due dates, otherwise known as Recurring Reminders (reminders that persist until a task is marked complete).

Setting a Recurring Reminder is particularly helpful for projects with a number of important deadlines, or if your team is spread across multiple projects or they need a little extra help to stay on track. With Recurring Reminders set in your sheet, you’ll save time and rest easier knowing that nothing will be missed.

So What Exactly is a Recurring Reminder?

A Recurring Reminder is one that will be sent to a recipient every day until the task is complete. While Smartsheet doesn't have pre-built functionality to make this happen, you can use formulas to get the results you need, similar to the way you create Conditional Reminders.  

This workflow is best for sheets that you and your team are actively using each day. In order for these steps to work, your sheet with this formula and reminder combination needs to be opened and saved every day.

Steps to Take to Schedule a Recurring Reminder:

The idea here is to use a formula to automatically insert "today's" date into a date column. Every day that you open and save the sheet, "today's" date will update, triggering another Reminder.

1.  Make sure you have a column in your sheet to mark if tasks are complete.

Depending on your team’s method for tracking task completion, you can use a few different methods to indicate when something is complete. The most common scenarios that we encounter are either a checkbox column or a percentage complete column.

2.  Add a new column ‘Reminder Date’ to your sheet.

Use the ‘Reminder Date’ column to generate the dates that will send Reminders to your team, rather than using a ‘Start Date’ or ‘End Date’ column.  When adding this column, make sure to set the column type to ‘Date’.

3. Create an IF formula.

The IF formula will be used to insert "today's" date into the cell only if the task hasn't been marked as complete. 

The formula will vary based off your team’s method for tracking completion.  

If your team is using a checkbox column to track task completion, your formula will look like this:

=IF(Complete4 = 0, TODAY(), “”)

This formula will check the value listed in row 4 of the ‘Complete’ column to see if it is equal to 0.  In formulas, 0 represents an unchecked box and 1 represents a checked box.

If the box in row 4 is unchecked, meaning the task in row 4 still needs to be completed, then the formula will insert today’s date into the Reminder Date column.

If your team is using a percentage column to track task completion, your formula will look like this:

=IF([% Complete]4 <> 1, TODAY(), “”)

This formula will check your ‘% Complete’ column in row 4, to see if the value is “not equal to” (represented by <> in the formula) 1.  1 is the decimal equivalent to 100%.  This means that if the task’s percentage complete is less than 100%, not complete, today’s date will be inserted into your ‘Reminder Date’ column.

In both of these scenarios, the formulas used will make "today's" date appear automatically in the Reminder Date column as long as the task remains incomplete. The next day that you open the sheet, the date listed in the column will update automatically based on the formula.

4.  Set a new sheet-level Reminder

Now that you’ve used a formula to automatically update your sheet each day, schedule a reminder to check in with your team based off the ‘Reminder Date’ information, via a sheet-level Reminder.

Sheet-level Reminders are applied to every row in your sheet in a specific column that has a date, including rows you may add after the fact. To set a sheet-level Reminder, open up the Alerts tab at the bottom of your sheet – the Notifications and Reminders form will pop up.   

Schedule your sheet-level Reminder to be sent out one day after the date in your new Reminder Date column.

One note about how Reminders work:

Reminders are sent out automatically, based on your local time setting, between midnight and 5 am – meaning you can’t send a Reminder on the same day you create it.  This is why your Reminders are sent one day after the date in the Reminder Date column.

Thanks to formulas and a little help from Smartsheet, you can rest easy knowing that the details are covered.

Til next week, dig in and explore!

- Support Team

Today, the Smartsheet and Google relationship got a little bit stronger with the launch of our Chrome App in the Chrome Web Store.  The Smartsheet app launches directly from your taskbar – outside of the Chrome browser – for easy, fast access.  What this means is that Smartsheet takes center stage, without the Chrome tabs, buttons, and text boxes that are a part of the traditional browser.  

It feels similar to a native mobile app for a phone or tablet, you’re able to focus on what matters to you.  No distractions, widgets, popups or tabs in your way.  Just your work – so it's easier to get things done.

This adds a tighter connection to our partnership with Chrome and Google.  We’re excited about the Smartsheet Chrome App for a number of reasons:

• True productivity is what Smartsheet is all about. We're dedicated to providing you with multiple ways to access your work -- to make getting your work done easier.  Smartsheet for Chrome is yet another option for you to access your projects or plans.  You chose how you want to access Smartsheet, we make it happen.
• You use Chrome! A large majority of Smartsheet users all over the world rely on Chrome for a fast and reliable web navigation experience.  Because we know that Chrome is such a popular browser, when an opportunity comes along to make the Smartsheet / Chrome experience even more convenient and that much faster, we have to take it.
• Google takes getting work done seriously… just like we do. It’s encouraging to see the Chrome Web Store continuing to grow as a space that welcomes productivity and business apps, and we’re proud to be part of an ecosystem that helps you focus on the things that matter.

See what Google has to say about this new breed of apps in their announcement yesterday that Chrome Apps are now available for Macs.

The Smartsheet Chrome App is the latest addition to our Google integrations.  If you’re just getting started using Smartsheet and Google together, check out this blog post from our Support Team for the details on how Google and Smartsheet go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Google is constantly reimagining the way that apps work together, within each other -- we’re excited to be a part of what’s next.

This week, I had the opportunity to talk with one of the most efficient managers I’ve ever met. I was interested in learning how he and his team keep everything organized and on track as they head into the busiest time of the year. In his world, nothing - NOTHING - can fall through the cracks. Delays in product delivery simply can’t happen. Some would say he’s a magician for getting 100% satisfaction ratings; I think he’s a master of manufacturing on demand.

Here’s a bit of our conversation. 

Me: What challenges were you having managing your work and manufacturing processes?

Santa: Ho Ho HO! Merry Christmas to you, young lady! Tis the season for all good little boys and girls to write to me and make a request for a special toy or two. You can imagine the mail I get from all over the world! The Missus, she works hard helping me sort through all the requests, but we can’t enter them fast enough into our “Naughty or Nice” system and not make mistakes. You see dear, there’s a big difference between Billy from Ottawa or Bilwi from Zambia.

And when the pressure’s on during those crunch months, I didn’t really know if Buddy and his crew were on track with building and assembling the toys, wrapping and labeling, and loading them on the sleigh. See, we’ve had to expand our operations so much over the years - from product planning to manufacturing, shipping and logistics - and it’s now spread across our large campus here at the North Pole. There were just too many opportunities for error to be left to my ol’ manual spreadsheet and stacks of letters and papers on my desk. It’s 2013, for jolly ol’ sakes…

You’re not going to believe this, but there was this one year there was almost no Christmas. Could you imagine? <shaking his head> We had horrible weather when Heat Miser lost a bet to Snow Miser, elves called in sick after drinking too much so-called "egg nog," deliveries were delayed by Rudolph and his thrilling Hide the Sleigh Reigns game. Hilarious, that one. Bottom line,  I didn’t think we could pull it off. If we didn’t have our plans in Smartsheet, it would’ve been a sad, sad day for many little boys and girls...and that breaks my heart. <sigh>

Me: Sad indeed. So tell me how Smartsheet helped your organization become more efficient.

Santa: To tell you the truth, this whole operation turned around when my friend Tiffy, the Tooth Fairy, turned me on to Smartsheet a couple years ago. She shared a sheet with me as she was pretty proud of how she was tracking the boys and girls who lost teeth this year. (She’s a good gal and all, just a bit pretentious with her on-demand gifting.)

Once I saw that super sheet, I knew Santa could use it. Ho Ho Ho! I’m not very technical you see, but this looked easy...easy enough for good ol’ Saint Nick.

You see, I’ve long been a fan of the cloud. In fact, I’ve been working in the clouds for years... every single Christmas during my 30-hour delivery window, the deers and I zip through the clouds at 650 miles per second while lugging roughly 350,000 tons of toys. That requires some magical cloud technology... not unlike Smartsheet.

Me: Tell me how Smartsheet helps you manage Christmas, Santa.

Santa: Twas the weeks before Christmas and the children fill out a simple web form, with their name, what special present they’d like from Santa this year, and if they’ve been Naughty or Nice. That’s key you see...because that’s the trigger I need to determine what present they get this year.

Once they submit the form, it goes straight into the big internet cloud, and into my Smartsheet. Line by line the requests flow in. I’m alerted on my iPhone when they come in so I don’t miss a one. (The Misses, she calls me iSanta. Isn’t that sweeter than honey on a candy cane? Ho Ho Ho!)

I then review their requests and determine if they’ve been Naughty or Nice. If it’s Naughty, the poor little dears are destined for a lump of coal. Better not pout, you’d better not cry. Just sayin little ones, there are consequences.

If Nice (and boy do I like it when they’re nice!), I make a simple check mark in the column, and then magic happens! Elf manager Buddy gets alerted of the order and assigns resources on his teams to manage it. He can see who has the time and availability on his/her schedule. Maybe it’s Clarence, maybe it’s Nipper. Heck, maybe they’re all busy, and he has to bring in backups like Elvis and Elfie to handle the extra load. The point is, Buddy knows the elfin’ capacity. I get alerted along the way if there are issues so I’m in the know know know. Ha ha ha - get it? Know know know - Ho ho ho?

Then, Buddy simply tracks each order through to completion. Then, it’s off to Donner and Blitzen for logistics and delivery scheduling. No surprises. No excuses. No missed deliveries.

Me: What about during the off season?

Santa: Oh, Christmas is just the tip of the iceberg – or as we often say at the North Pole, it’s the tippy top of the iceberg. Ho Ho HO! The rest of the year is when we’re busy planning and managing our work in Smartsheet -- production goals, inventory levels, naughty/nice tracking, new-elf onboarding, reindeer performance reviews, and so on. It’s the glue holding our enterprise together.

I even use Smartsheet extensively to track my post-holiday fitness goals. There’s nothing like writing down my workout schedule and progress, and sharing it with the Missus and the elves to keep me honest and focused. Not that Santa would ever lie, No No NO. But when you think about having to burn off about 20 billion calories worth of cookies come January, it’s truly mission critical part of the Santa enterprise.

Me: What difference has using Smartsheet made for you?

Santa: It’s a team effort here at the North Pole. I think you folks call it ‘collaboration.’ Without Smartsheet, I was a nervous mess, afraid we’d disappoint some dear, sweet child. Afraid we wouldn’t have the inventory on hand to fulfill orders. Afraid the elves couldn’t take a day off to go to the dentist without setting us back.

Now the big fella sleeps like a baby! Ho Ho HO. And the elves are happy again, in control and organized. Trust me, no one likes a grumpy elf. Christmas is once again magic. And if that’s not enough, because I’m more relaxed, the Missus lets me have a few extra cookies. There’s nothing sweeter in the whole world.

It’s the list-making time of year, the time when people are thinking about fresh starts, big plans and even bigger wins. So here, just in time for your New Years resolution list, is the unofficial Smartsheet guide to upping your project management game in 2014.

The Unofficial Smartsheet Guide to Being a Project Manager | An infographic by the team at Smartsheet

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<img src="http://www.smartsheet.com/files/haymaker/HowToBeProjectMngr.png"><br /> The Unofficial Smartsheet Guide to Being a Project Manager | An infographic by the team at <a href="http://www.smartsheet.com">Smartsheet</a>

The Unofficial Smartsheet Guide to Being a Project Manager

1. Read widely, especially about human psychology.
2. Become an early adopter of new technology. This will not only make you more efficient, it will make you an important resource within your organization. 
3. Use Linked In as a news source. It’s become an absolutely marvelous discovery engine for anything related to work.
4. Learn how to play poker. The ability to manage risk and place smart bets is a critical career skill.
5. Be proactive. The ability to see one step ahead determines whether you manage the project or the project manages you.
6. Go mobile. Buy a tablet and install your productivity apps on it.
7. Make a point of being prepared for anything.
8. Never check your cell phone in the middle of a meeting. Ever.
9. Cultivate relationships before you need them.
10. Be curious about everything. You can build genuine connection with anyone on your team based on a mutual interest.
11. Hold yourself accountable. 
12. Take your personal grooming up a notch. Never underestimate the subtle power of looking sharp.
13. Be an optimist. No one was ever inspired to meet a difficult project challenge by a negative outlook.
14. Keep a bowl of candy and pack of gum on your desk. It gives people a reason to stop by.
15. Be punctual, not punctilious.
16. Go out for drinks with the most difficult stakeholder you work with. You may be surprised.
17. Remember, lists are essential to managing a plan, but it’s people who bring the plan to life. 

From the project management minds @Smartsheet, the tool millions of PMs worldwide choose to work more productively than ever before.