Broadcom Clarity vs Smartsheet comparison

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3,760 views|1,294 comparisons
92% willing to recommend
Smartsheet Logo
2,620 views|956 comparisons
97% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Broadcom Clarity and Smartsheet based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Project Portfolio Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Broadcom Clarity vs. Smartsheet Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The product is flexible.""Being able to track all of the projects with all of the details of those projects, and being able to move projects along from a process perspective, that is really beneficial.""It has highlighted areas in our company that were deficient in resources. It has allowed us to hire, then realize more benefits regarding the number of projects we can get done.​""It has improved communication vertically, with some amount of data to be able to show that more resources are necessary, or why projects aren't moving as fast as management would like. That sort of communication makes my job a lot easier.""​It is very intuitive. Even if you do not have training documents or anything, you can start feeling your way around pretty easily.""We have flexible scrum teams, developers that will serve on one scrum team for a few sprints or for a project. Being able to track where people go with the resource management features, and making sure that our teams are fully staffed, is important.""I appreciate the report that shows how utilized a person is set to be within the coming months. I use that feature a good bit.""Upgrades were pretty straightforward. CA took care of everything, we just did the testing."

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"The most valuable features of Smartsheet are its collaboration tools, the ability to centralize and prioritize projects, and robust reporting capabilities.""Smartsheet offers more than Project because it's similar to a table-based, database-type system. It's like a hybrid between Excel and project software. We were able to enter the formulas and do much of the automation. We added budgets to it and linked them to a vendor page. Smartsheet let us integrate the budget into the project seamlessly. With Project, we needed to open up Excel.""It's very user friendly.""Smartsheet is a really good tool for collaboration.""Smartsheet does a really good job of creating Gantt charts. Export to Excel feature was also very useful.""The most valuable feature of Smartsheet is its intuitiveness, ease of use, and overall simplicity.""The product is easy to use.""The ability to build a quick dashboard and give management insight into the progress of the project itself is probably one of the most beneficial pieces."

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Cons
"The Latin American support could be better due to the language barrier.""Setup could be made easier.""In terms of what could be improved, the end user interface could be improved to be more intuitive, because we sometimes have issues with customization. Sometimes we are not able to customize everything for the end user's interface, and they require more customization. We should be able to perform a deeper customization here.""As far as a tool that communicates with resources, with individuals - what they're supposed to do next or what action items came out of what meeting - it's not really used that way. Probably I could envision a way that it would be used that way. Until it's as easy as sending an email, it probably won't be utilized by the resources in that manner.""​​I would really like a modern UI. I do not want to get on a user interface and feel like I am in the 1990's.​""There is a lack of seamless integration with industry standard products.""One of the things that have always been a bit painful is the integration with reporting utilities. The current integration is with Jaspersoft, and there are a number of difficulties with that. If you're using out-of-the-box fields and everything, it is a bit slow and clunky. It has a drag-and-drop interface for the users. On the backend side, there is a report designer. They haven't given or allowed me any training on it yet. So, it has been a bit limited in its features. On one of the earlier report utilities, they had one called Actuate, which had VBA as its base programming language, and you could do quite dynamic things behind the scenes, whereas the Jaspersoft interface seems rather locked. So, you're limited in your options. Being a programmer, you like to have room to be able to invent and create rather than just being limited to a few selection boxes.""The only real improvement from my side - I'm spoiled by things like Trello, with the very easy user interface, things like Basecamp - it's very much a static software project. If I was to focus on something it would be that user interface; making that something that is a joy to use, instead of something that feels like data entry."

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"I think that the mobile interface needs to be improved. If you cannot access it through your laptop, I'd prefer to have that option on the mobile, but I don't think that it's user-friendly and easy to navigate.""We have to manually put in every dependency in Smartsheet.""A room for improvement I found in Smartsheet is the view, as it's currently row-wise. I should have the opportunity to view a full scale, top down list instead of just a column driven list. I shouldn't have to go just left or right. I should be able to view it top down.""Smartsheet needs to improve the user interface.""I would like if Smartsheet allowed more formulas in its sheets. I don't think working with formulas is as intuitive as it is in Excel. I use Vlookups and index matches in some of my sheets, and I had to find an outside consultant to help me build out those formulas.""The downside of Smartsheet is that there are some security concerns. We were able to restrict people from sharing sheets with anyone who was not in our domain, but it could be easier. We also found it hard to restrict certain user groups from adding attachments to sheets.""Maybe the solution could be a little bit more flexible.""An area for improvement in Smartsheet is that if you're in the government or you're a regulated customer, you're not allowed to use APIs due to internal restrictions, so there are specific things that you cannot connect to it. Another area for improvement in the solution is that because there's a capacity of how many records you can have, and there's a capacity of how many functions you can apply, Smartsheet has set up their system where they can force people into purchasing a $20,000 additional module that is called Control Center, that will create documents for them on the fly, so they don't use so many functions and automation. Smartsheet also needs to improve on training, because the training that is out there is very little. The solution requires a steeper learning curve. You have to do your own training and you have to work on your own solution."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "For all the functionalities of the solution, the price is in the market range, since it is a product which offers governance issues and supports the digital transformation, which is where we will go in the next year."
  • "Better understanding of requirements and how it will be implemented (with number of licenses for a given budget) would help."
  • "It is a little bit costly compared to others, but it is mature. Customer should understand this product is geared towards project management, not financial management."
  • "It is hard for them to say, "I have a person on my team who is going to be available, I am going to move that task to them". That requires a project management license, it doesn't require a team member license, so the licensing model does not sometimes support the way the business world is going."
  • "We're also moving to the latest version for less than $20,000 for a major corporate system. It's just amazing."
  • "Broadcom Clarity PPM costs us $500K, and that's only for the installation and kick off within the first year. For each succeeding year, it could cost $200K."
  • "There are different licensing models with Broadcom Clarity PPM. With the software as a service model, you pay as you go, and if you are on-premises, you can buy a perpetual license and an annual fee for maintenance."
  • "Cost-wise, the tool is very expensive and some tools might be able to cater to 80% of the functionality provided by Broadcom Clarity PPM but are not as expensive."
  • More Broadcom Clarity Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "This licensing is straightforward and they charge per user."
  • "Its licensing is on a yearly basis. I was responsible for negotiating the price with the Smartsheet team, but I don't remember what the price was. Its standard license probably was around 5,000 to 6,000 a year. The enterprise version is significantly more expensive."
  • "Smartsheet only requires licenses for project managers. When we were using Asana, we had to purchase a license for everyone who wanted to access their tasks and use the system. That gets costly fast. It was one of the main reasons we left Asana. As Asana and these other tools scale, they become way more expensive."
  • "There would be more extensive usage if the solution were cheaper. It's really expensive right now, and that's why we provide a few licenses for admins. The rest of them are just users without admin privileges."
  • "I would assume there is a licensing fee. I don't think that it is free."
  • "It is less expensive than Microsoft Project for enterprise or Oracle Primavera by an order of magnitude. If you buy a Microsoft Project license, it's probably $300 or so by itself, whereas Smartsheet is probably less than $50 per head."
  • "For a normal license, like the one I had: I had my own Smartsheet because I wanted to play with it and I didn't want to mess with what I was doing in Verizon, so I paid $200 monthly, and it gave me all the same functionalities, so I could do whatever I wanted for $200. The problem is if you have anyone else working on it or deploying on it, it's $200 a month for every single person who's deployed on it, that's working on it as an owner or an administrator, so owners and administrators are the only ones who can change, edit, and add data to worksheets and columns. Depending on the size of your organization, Smartsheet can be costly. As for implementing its Control Center, Smartsheet forces you to have three people come in: it's a minimum of three people from Smartsheet for three months who will provide you the solutions for the Control Center side, and that's $150 an hour, so it can become very expensive. For my company, not having the Control Center would save on the setup fees and then the $20,000 a year, because the Control Center of Smartsheet is a yearly subscription of $20,000."
  • "Smartsheet has many licensing models. You need to add the package that best suits your requirements. The license is paid per user and it is monthly. The cost was approximately $7 per PC, $15 for professional, and $33 for the enterprise plan."
  • More Smartsheet Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The solution can be used for strategic planning. It is also used for portfolio and project management.
    Top Answer:Hi @Eire Zimmermann,  I helped an organization evaluate both MS-Project and Smartsheet when they were conducting their PM tool RFP. The short of it is this, MS Project is not caught up with the… more »
    Top Answer:Smartsheet is a really good tool for collaboration.
    Top Answer:The solution is too expensive. For what I use it for, it's too expensive. I wouldn't pay for it myself. I would prefer to buy Microsoft Project or use Zoho Projects.
    Ranking
    Views
    3,760
    Comparisons
    1,294
    Reviews
    10
    Average Words per Review
    1,008
    Rating
    8.5
    Views
    2,620
    Comparisons
    956
    Reviews
    25
    Average Words per Review
    710
    Rating
    8.1
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Clarity PPM, CA Clarity, CA PPM, CA Clarity PPM
    Learn More
    Smartsheet
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    Overview

    Clarity is the Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) solution created by Broadcom. The platform aims to help medium and large organizations to manage products and services. Clarity features scoreboards, financial analysis tools, and more.

    The platform facilitates the delivery of projects and programs and can accelerate an organization’s digital transformation. It allows users to create initiatives, add budgets and projects with a few clicks, and assign and track teams. It shortens the time to make changes to projects to minutes instead of days.

    Broadcom Clarity PPM features in-app collaboration and timesheets accessible via mobile devices. Users can access the platform via desktop or mobile. The platform can be deployed on premises or as a cloud-based service with a hosted or SasS delivery.

    How does it work?

    Clarity’s Strategic Portfolio Management enables planning and prioritizing of work to fit customer demands and business needs, managing the value stream from concept to cash.

    Broadcom Clarity PPM Key Features

    • Strategic roadmaps: Clarity’s multidimensional road maps effectively eliminate organizational fatigue. It includes useful features such as drag-and-drop capabilities. It also allows you to map risks and dependencies and track project progress.

    • Project financials: Clarity integrates with Power BI and Tableau with business intelligence solutions. The platform uses Microsoft Excel charting and grouping functions to keep a familiar feel to project and financial reports. You can customize your projects according to investment types and fiscal periods.
    • Collaboration features: Broadcom Clarity PPM provides a central view of each employee’s projects, schedule, and status. You can assign tasks to teams with pinning features without time-consuming filters.
    • Resource management: Clarity enables you to filter available resources and investments to the department level. Doing this allows for managing labor and non-labor resources with ease.

    Other features include:

    • One-click charts
    • Staffing and resource management
    • To-do boards
    • Investment hierarchies
    • Business widgets

    Broadcom Clarity PPM Benefits

    • Quick setup: The platform is easy and fast to configure and deploy. It also includes migration services to help customers move to the cloud.

    • Lower cost: The SaaS version is a user-based subscription service that eliminates the need for infrastructure investment.

    • Constant updates: Updates are rolled automatically and included in the subscription to ensure the user always has the latest version.

    • Strong security: The Clarity infrastructure constantly updates identity-centric intrusion detection services. It features data protection capabilities on desktops and mobiles, including protection against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS).

    • Scalability: Its load-balanced environment enables users to scale up or down to match spikes in project-based activities. It also features pay-as-you-use.

    • Integrations: Integrates with financial apps, executive dashboards, HR software, ERP systems, etc.

    • Configurability: You can adapt Clarity PPM to your organization’s requirements.

    • Reporting and business intelligence: Clarity’s features include a built-in data warehouse and BI platform.

    • User-friendly: It features an intuitive user interface and interactive communication options.

    • Project management options: You can manage your project with Agile, classic, or hybrid methods inside Clarity PPM.

    Broadcom Clarity PPM Use Cases

    Organizations use Clarity PPM for a variety of use cases:

    • Time management
    • Product management
    • Resource management
    • Financial management
    • Project portfolio management
    • Reporting services
    • Project management
    • Ticket and change management
    • IT service desks
    • Financial services

    Reviews from Real Users

    "Broadcom Clarity PPM is a high-value product that helps users become productive. It's a very stable, scalable, and fast platform, even from a self management perspective," says Mohammad J., Senior Clarity PPM Technical Consultant at Al Rajhi Bank.

    A Director of Operations at a tech services company adds that "It's very good out of the box, without configurations required."

    Sergio C., Service Delivery Manager at Syntech, says, "The most valuable feature is the portfolio functionality because we have the ability to work with different scenarios and many kinds of financial management. We can integrate with ERP, and with other solutions from third-party vendors. The financial model in Broadcom Clarity PPM, it's the most valuable aspect."

    Smartsheet is the enterprise platform for dynamic work. A leading cloud-based platform for work management, Smartsheet empowers organizations and teams to dynamically plan, execute, and report on work at scale, resulting in more efficient processes, innovative solutions, and better business outcomes.

    Today over 90% of Fortune 100 companies and over 75% of Fortune 500 companies rely on the secure, scalable Smartsheet platform to connect the entire enterprise. The single Smartsheet platform gives people a solution flexible enough to adapt to the changing needs of dynamic work across a broad array of departments and use cases.

    Sample Customers
    Toyota Financial Services, GameStop, Polycom, Sky, Qantas, Cox Enterprises, Banco Mercantil, Borealis
    Sony Music, ESPN, Hilton, Unisource, Colliers, Extreme Networks, Groupon, Netflix
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm28%
    Insurance Company11%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Healthcare Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization61%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Government5%
    Manufacturing Company4%
    REVIEWERS
    Pharma/Biotech Company14%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization36%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Healthcare Company6%
    Computer Software Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise6%
    Large Enterprise79%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business5%
    Midsize Enterprise64%
    Large Enterprise31%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business42%
    Midsize Enterprise3%
    Large Enterprise55%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise41%
    Large Enterprise45%
    Buyer's Guide
    Broadcom Clarity vs. Smartsheet
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom Clarity vs. Smartsheet and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Broadcom Clarity is ranked 2nd in Project Portfolio Management with 136 reviews while Smartsheet is ranked 4th in Project Portfolio Management with 33 reviews. Broadcom Clarity is rated 8.0, while Smartsheet is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Broadcom Clarity writes "A dynamic solution with a lot of great out-of-the-box calculations, but integration with reporting utilities is a bit painful". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Smartsheet writes "Has customization, data pulling, and cross-functional global communication features; it's a secure solution". Broadcom Clarity is most compared with Microsoft Project, Jira, Planview Portfolios, ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management and monday.com, whereas Smartsheet is most compared with Microsoft Project, ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management, Spreadsheet.com, Adobe Workfront and Teamwork . See our Broadcom Clarity vs. Smartsheet report.

    See our list of best Project Portfolio Management vendors and best Project Management Software vendors.

    We monitor all Project Portfolio Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.