Using SmartSheet In Our Remodeling Business

I have a grow­ing num­ber of clients using a project man­age­ment pro­gram called SmartSheet the past cou­ple of years. I stum­bled upon SmartSheet awhile back myself when research­ing oth­er cloud-based project man­age­ment pro­grams. I had been hooked on Base­camp for almost a decade, but it lacked some key fea­tures for my audi­ence. For this next blog, I’ve asked my good friend and client, Bar­ry Stohlman, to write about his expe­ri­ence using SmartSheet in his Design-Build firm in the DC Metro area.

Guest Post By Bar­ry Stohlman of Stohlman & Kil­ner Remod­el­ing Contractors

Our res­i­den­tial remod­el­ing com­pa­ny has been using SmartSheet now for going on three years. I was recent­ly asked how we use this pro­gram and that prompt­ed me to go back and look and reflect on what we like about SmartSheet. The best way to review how we use it is with exam­ples. I will focus on two doc­u­ments that we rely on for every project we do — Prod­uct Selec­tion Sheet and Project Calendar.

Prod­uct Selections

In the world of remod­el­ing there are always a myr­i­ad of details to be man­aged and com­mu­ni­cat­ed between client, con­trac­tor, ven­dor and sub­con­trac­tor. With our Prod­uct Selec­tion Sheet we are able to list in a typ­i­cal spread­sheet style the per­ti­nent details. What SmartSheet allows us to do in addi­tion to the usu­al spread­sheet func­tions is that we can eas­i­ly attach a rel­e­vant file to any line of the spread­sheet — i.e. — on the Tile line we can attach the order from our ven­dor. This proves to be huge when our field man­ag­er is look­ing for infor­ma­tion about any aspect of the project. He has (or should have) all the data he needs in SmartSheet — either in the cells of the spread­sheet or as an attach­ment. And we can attach just about any file, PDF or pho­to we want. There is also the abil­i­ty to com­ment or dis­cuss about a detail right inside of the pro­gram and alert­ing all those involved so that you can quick­ly get response to issues or ques­tions. This fea­ture itself cuts down dra­mat­i­cal­ly on the ran­dom ques­tions and con­ver­sa­tions about a detail.

If instead you want to share your sheet with a client but NOT give them the abil­i­ty to make changes you can pub­lish a link which gives the client a ​“View Only” ver­sion of any sheet. Keeps them in the loop and always updat­ed as changes hap­pen real time. This is a great fea­ture that has proven more than once to save our back­sides when a detail was not cor­rect. It can be caught and cor­rect­ed before the actu­al work is done.

Project Cal­en­dar

Our Project Cal­en­dar works on the same basic plat­form. In this case we take advan­tage of the date, pre­de­ces­sor and dura­tion columns which in turn serve to gen­er­ate the Gantt views and the cal­en­dar views. It is as sim­ple as that! Enter the data in the spread­sheet and it cre­ates the oth­er views for you. And we also use the very handy ​“col­umn prop­er­ties” to cus­tomize the ways that our columns func­tion. This is part of what SmartSheet such a great tool for us. These built-in tools, like the attach­ment and com­ment func­tions, are very pow­er­ful and make SmartSheet so easy to use!

And we con­tin­ue to dis­cov­er new and smarter ways to use the pro­gram through­out our com­pa­ny. It has been very sim­ple to intro­duce peo­ple to since it only requires basic knowl­edge of how a spread­sheet works. Then the added tools and fea­tures have turned SmartSheet into an essen­tial part of our day-to-day com­mu­ni­ca­tions and data management.

Give SmartSheet A Go

David: Like any gad­get or tech­nol­o­gy you pur­chase, the key is to stick to and use it. I con­tin­u­al­ly get asked to review cloud pro­grams and am told that this one is bet­ter than that one. Each pro­gram and device on the mar­ket has a place in the mar­ket. I tend to review and rec­om­mend prod­ucts that I feel will work best for con­trac­tors while keep­ing in mind that many of these guys are slow to adapt­ing new tech­nol­o­gy. SmartSheet is one of those pro­grams that can be intro­duced on a very light scale and grow to be a very pow­er­ful and inte­gral part of one’s busi­ness. Give SmartSheet a go and let me know how it helps your busi­ness be more pro­duc­tive and profitable.