In our company, our use case for Trello is that it's used for individual projects, e.g. for our marketing department, data department, etc. We use it to assign tasks, to track what stage each task is currently on, to add notes, etc. We use the solution to check the progress within various departments and various projects that we have within our company.
The key benefit that Trello has provided to our company is organization. Currently, for each department and each project, we know where we are and what we still have on our plate. We know what's top priority and what's low priority, etc. Trello provides basic organization across all departments within our company.
Personally, I love the user interface of Trello, because it's very modern, easy to understand, and it allows you to move one task from stage to stage through its drag and drop functionality.
I also love that you're able to add images, tag your colleagues, and provide updates within any kind of task.
These are the main features and functionalities I enjoy the most out of Trello.
Its hard to say what could be improved in Trello, because it does what it was designed to do, and it's simple, so it's really hard to come up with any flaws.
If I were to name one, it will be for the solution to have more integrations, e.g. they already have quite a few, but we're heavy users of a CRM called Creational, and there's no direct integration with that particular CRM system, but that CRM system is one of the top five CRMs out there. I found it quite odd and strange that integration between Trello and Creational isn't available, while for Salesforce, it's there. Having more integration with third party tools is an area for improvement for Trello.
I also haven't actually looked too much into it, and I'm not sure if this is currently available in Trello: having something along the lines of WhatsApp, where you're able to hold down a button and leave a voice message for your colleagues. It's an additional feature I'd love to see in the next release of Trello, because I think that's also a very quick and great way to be able to communicate with your colleagues. It'll be so much quicker than having to type long sentences or paragraphs to explain. Having voice messaging as an additional functionality in Trello would be great.
We've been active users of Trello for the past five years. It's a cloud-based solution, so it automatically gets updated, and this means we're always on the latest version.
The stability of Trello is top-notch. I would rate it five out of five. It's super stable.
The scalability in Trello is amazing. If you have a big project or an existing project, you want to create a new Trello board in just a couple of clicks. Being able to invite additional employees, team members, and colleagues, would take just a few clicks, e.g. you just need to input their emails or the first name, last name, and emails. Invite are sent, so they're able to log in, and they're integrated directly. Everything is very fast and easy to use.
We tried to use other solutions that turned out to be a little bit more complex, e.g. Monday.com, Asana, and quite a few other ones. We've actually tested around 10 different solutions, and we were looking for something a little bit more structured, a little bit more organized. After testing all these other solutions, we understood that simplicity is key and that's basically why Trello won. That's why we've been using Trello for the past five years.
The initial setup for Trello was very simple, that even a six year old child would be able to do it and use it. You go to the site as it's all browser-based, but I know that they also have an application that's available on Android and iOS.
To use the app, all you need to do is to download it, log into your account, and you'll be ready to go. It's super simple. You're also able to customize the stages, but it literally takes seconds to do, including creating your own Trello cards, and your own pages. The process was very quick, easy, and intuitive.
We didn't have to use a consultant or integrator to implement Trello. I doubt that anybody would actually use one for this solution, unless they have something crazy in mind.
Trello has a paid version, but we've been using just the free version. It covers all of the bases and all of our needs for us, so there's no cost involved for us. This is surprising for such a quality platform with no limitations on the key functionalities, because you can take advantage of those functionalities without having to pay for the solution.
I'm not sure who the cloud provider is for Trello, but I'm assuming it's AWS.
We have eight to ten people using Trello in our company. It's just all management, e.g. the executive level, the team leads, it's management across the board. We're not a huge organization, but it's being used extensively. It's being used daily, e.g. we do have weekly calls with our main management team, and the first thing we do on every call is opening up Trello. We go through all of the cards to find out what's outstanding, what's moving, etc. This is how we operate, and this is how we're staying organized, through using Trello on a daily basis.
As the organization grows and we have more people in management, we could increase usage of Trello, and start including more people, but we're also potentially thinking of a way to be able to implement it and having just regular employees on there as well. It just adds a whole new level of organization to our business.
I've not had the chance to contact the technical support team of Trello, because for all of the years I've used it, absolutely nothing breaks, and nothing goes wrong. I'm not even sure they have a support team, e.g. I'm sure they do, but I've never had the need to actually contact them.
My advice to people looking into implementing Trello is to just do it. It's really a great software, and it's very easy to use. It's a great collaboration tool, as long as you implement it into your organization properly. I always have a game plan. You shouldn't expect to implement any kind of software and feel that it's going to make drastic changes to your organization. Make sure you have a game plan behind it, so once you're implementing it, you understand what kind of stages you need on your Trello board, and building processes behind that.
I'd give Trello a rating of nine out of ten, because I just don't believe that any product would be perfect. We really enjoyed using Trello, but we're hoping they'd surprise us in the future, e.g. through a new feature or functionality we haven't even thought about. We'll definitely continue using the solution, in the hope that they'd grow to be bigger and better.
We're using Smartsheet at the enterprise level throughout the organization. We did a test at the corporate office before moving forward. In the beginning, we were only using Smartsheet to help our corporate users open new facilities and convert warehouse management systems. Also, we used it in implementation at sites with new customers. Eventually, we began using Smartsheet for entire projects. We transitioned from Microsoft Project to Smartsheet for all of our projects.
I'm consulting with a company that uses Microsoft Project, which isn't cloud-based. Smartsheet is cloud-based, so it's more accessible. We need not worry about saving versions of the file when someone makes changes. For example, Microsoft Project locked up while someone was saving a file, and we couldn't access the original file properly.
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.
Smartsheet should continue to expand the spreadsheet-type functionality because it's limited currently. Most business users are familiar with Excel and Office, so Smartsheet should adopt a similar way of navigating the program.
When you're moving through cells or fields, you can't move with your arrows flipping back between things. If you hit enter, it doesn't do the same thing it does in Excel.
I have been using Smartsheet for about three years.
The stability is excellent.
Smartsheet is scalable. We deployed it in 47 large distribution centers across the United States, and we had six projects running on it. The corporate office could view all of the projects at once because the program management option is terrific.
Smartsheet support is fantastic. It's better than any I've ever dealt with before. They could answer any question I had about the functionality in a given use case. They were serious superusers. It wasn't just like, "Well, let me check." They actually knew the answer. We'd have a resolution in minutes because of how they had it set up for our organization.
Overall, setting up Smartsheet is pretty straightforward, but sometimes the project settings and the Office-style functionality limit people from getting the information as quickly as possible.
I don't know that that's a Smartsheet issue as much as it is a user issue. They have to understand that when somebody requests to open a project, they need to accept it, activate it, and move forward quickly.
The cost varies based on the number of users and the commitment that we gave them. I think it was reasonable. I can't remember the exact cost, but it's less than Microsoft Project.
I rate Smartsheet nine out of 10. Smartsheet has room for improvement, but they're moving in the right direction. If you're planning to implement Smartsheet, you need to take the time to prepare upfront. Depending on the organization's size, you need to gain experience and train some superusers.
You need a few people to learn the ins and outs and get in-depth training in the specific features they will utilize. Learn as much as possible about the system and do a lot of hands-on training right out of the gate.
Our company uses the solution for project management. We monitor work progress or activities to ensure they are completed. We get a full view of start dates, end dates, and all dependencies required for actions.
We store many things on Teams. We can make objections or put things in SharePoint.
Nine team members in our department use the solution. Previously, we used only on-premises but now we are using both on-premises and the cloud service.
The solution is tightly integrated with other Microsoft products such as SharePoint and Power Automate and also integrates with Google.
It is easy to check project costs in the solution.
Notifications provide alerts of new outages so you can move your project as needed.
The setup and scalability can be somewhat difficult for new users until they gain knowledge.
Ongoing education would motivate users to learn and take advantage of the solution's many features.
The price could be more flexible.
I have been using the solution for three years.
The solution is stable so I rate stability a nine out of ten.
The solution is scalable.
If you are familiar with Microsoft tools, then it is easy to understand the scalability. If you are a new user, then scaling may be difficult because you have to spend some time understanding Microsoft chronologies first to scale the solution.
I have not used technical support.
When we started working with the solution, the setup was somewhat difficult. Once you gain knowledge, you slowly see that the solution is easy to use.
We implemented the solution in-house.
The licensing model is somewhat complex. Initially, the price is low but scales up because you pay for consumption and usage.
Pricing is okay if you have one or two users. If you add everyone in your company as project managers, then the price is high.
The solution is better than Jira.
I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
