Smartsheet Launches New Version With Enhanced Features
10/21/08
..."With their official launch of V2 today, I wanted to give it another look to see how things have changed since I last looked. I also had an opportunity to chat about Smartsheet with founder and chairman Brent Frei who shared with me some of the design philosophy behind the service and productivity in general. According to Frei, Smartsheet is built upon 5 Foundational characteristics that define and guide the user experience, and where in the process most applications fail. From the initial first impressions through to company wide adoption, Frei claims that Smartsheet is designed to address the needs of real users through each of these phases.
One of the most intriguing of these 5 Foundations to me is their "No Adoption Required" philosophy. If you have ever tried to incorporate a project management tool into a team or collaborative environment, you understand the challenges of trying to get everyone on board. Whatever the case for the resistance, the tool ceases to be effective if the team doesn’t use it. Smartsheet and the "No Adoption Required" philosophy tries to combat this by enabling folks to be a contributor without needing to ever create an account or log in.
Acknowledging that email is still the primary communication tool in most organizations, Smartsheet has really beefed up notification and participation options through email. Using live secure links, users can access the area of the project that is relevant to them and incorporate their updates directly in to the Smartsheet system. These live links are also used for access to attached files.
I really can't stress how easy and seamlessly this is done."...
