How to Manage Your Project Schedule in Smartsheet

[Audio] Welcome to the sessions on creating a project schedule in Smartsheet..

[Audio] We will be covering the following topics in this session: The Benefits of Smartsheet; The Work Breakdown Structure (or W-B-S--) to Initial Project Schedule; The Project Schedule in Smartsheet, including The Work Plan Sheet with Dependencies, The Gantt View and Critical Path, and Assigning Tasks and Automations; And Takeaways..

[Audio] Overall, Smartsheet is a powerful tool that enhances project scheduling by improving visibility, communication, and efficiency. Using Smartsheet for managing a project schedule offers several benefits: Centralized Planning and Tracking: Smartsheet allows you to plan, track, automate, and report on projects all in one place. Collaboration and Communication: It facilitates communication and collaboration among team members. You can share the project schedule, assign tasks, and update progress. Automation: Smartsheet offers advanced automation features that can streamline processes and save time. Visual Timeline: You can view your project's schedule as a visual timeline and Gantt charts, which make it easier to understand the project's progress and is an important feature for project management. Smartsheet Resources are available on the S-S-E-S Smartsheet Resource portal. This portal includes licensing information, tools and resources offered by the S-S-E-S Quality Office via our Empower Excellence SharePoint site, and links to resources provided by Smartsheet. This session will assume some basic familiarly with Smartsheet; if you are new to Smartsheet, please review a Smartsheet basics resource..

[Audio] Before you can begin entering information into Smartsheet, you should create your Work Breakdown Structure (or W-B-S--) and Activity List. This is often easier to do outside of Smartsheet, and then you can use Smartsheet to visualize your project schedule. If you need more information about creating a W-B-S and activity list, we have a recording of a previous Project Management Community of Practice session available as well as a written guide for creating a W-B-S--. Once you have your list of activities, you can begin building your project schedule in Smartsheet. Smartsheet will allow you to estimate the duration of each activity, create dependencies, view the activities in a Gantt Chart, assign staff to each activity, and modify the schedule as needed..

[Audio] While you are free to create a project schedule in Smartsheet from scratch, we have a template for that! In fact, we have a whole set of project management (or PM) tools that can be requested for your project. The PM Smartsheet Toolset was designed and is maintained by the S-S-E-S Project Management Champions Team. The toolset is intended to be used for project management activities for S-S-E-S client projects. There is a link to the PM Smartsheet Toolset resources in this section of the PM Tools & Technology menu, or it can be found under the Project Management Tab of the Empower Excellence site. Throughout the rest of the presentation, we will be assuming you have requested a PM Smartsheet Toolset..

[Audio] Here is a screenshot of the current Work Plan template that is part of the PM Smartsheet Toolset. This will be your project schedule, which was developed from your W-B-S and activity list. You can learn more about each column by reading the Quick Guide for the PM Smartsheet Toolset and viewing a short demo video on the work plan template. This Work Plan sheet is designed for you to easily enter your tasks and subtasks from your W-B-S and Activity list. You will see there are Start and End date columns that will allow you to estimate the duration of the activity. Dependencies settings are already activated for this sheet, and the Predecessors column allows you to configure which tasks are dependent on each other. It is important to know that the dependencies settings allow for the following to occur: Changes in the start or end date on the predecessor (the task that must begin or end before successor task can begin) immediately adjust the dates of its dependents or successor tasks. Changes in two of the Start Date, End Date, and Duration columns automatically calculate the third value. Start Date, End Date, Duration, and % Complete roll up to parent rows, which serve as summary calculations. Parent row values are read-only, as they're calculated automatically based on values in the child rows. The parent rows serve as a roll-up summary to group and organize tasks within a complex project. You can highlight the critical path in the Gantt chart to visualize what drives the overall project duration..

[Audio] Within Smartsheet, you can easily toggle between views. For example, you are likely familiar with the grid view that resembles a basic spreadsheet. In the top left of the grid, you will see a dropdown menu where you can select different views; there are several different views available. I encourage you to explore the other view options; however, the Gantt view is likely what you are most interested in for project management work. In the Gantt view, you can see the timeline of your activities based on the dates, durations, and dependencies you entered. Another key feature is that Smartsheet will show you your critical path. In the top right of the grid, you will see a red icon. This icon, when selected, will identify your critical path. The critical path is a sequence of tasks that are essential to a project's success and that must be completed on time for the project to be finished.

[Audio] One of the columns within the work plan sheet is the Assigned To column. This column is a contact list that can be used for filtering and even creating automations. One example of a popular automation is one that notifies the assignee that a task is due soon. The nice thing about the PM Smartsheet Toolset is that templates have tons of built-in features, so the automation to let the assignee know they have a task due soon is already created and available in the template. All you need to do is activate the automation so that it sends the notification. Of course these are basic automations, there are endless possibilities for the types of automations you can create, I encourage you to learn more about Smartsheet automations and build and adjust them as you see fit for your project. To activate the automation, select Automation from the top menu, then select Manage automation workflows; a list of the existing workflows will show—select the three-dot menu next to the automation and select activate. Team members will need at least a free collaborator license to access the sheet. If they are provided access to the sheet, the assignee of the task will be able to navigate to the assigned task row and mark the task complete. This is an easy way to get your team involved in keeping the project schedule up to date, and this is very similar to selecting from a dropdown in Excel. The entire team does not have to be Smartsheet savvy..

[Audio] It may be helpful to create your W-B-S and activities list outside of Smartsheet and then move to Smartsheet to develop your project schedule. Smartsheet can be used to manage your project schedule. From assigning the task to a team member to viewing the critical path, Smartsheet will allow you to have visibility into the status of your project. We strongly encourage you to request a PM Smartsheet Toolset, as there are many features already built in and you will not need to create them yourselves. We only touched on one of the templates available in the toolset—there are many more, including a project dashboard and risk register. Visit the Project Management Tab on the Empower Excellence site to learn more about Smartsheet and to access all available support and training resources on the S-S-E-S Smartsheet Resource Portal..

[Audio] Thank you. We appreciate your time and attention.​.