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I am working with on of our departments internally on their Smartsheet system, and looking for insight into how some of you handle complex project plans. What they have right now is so bloated that it is unmanageable, and making them rethink using Smartsheet as a system at all. for context, they went from using Google Sheets which they used as just a task list type tool, to a very rigid/structured project plan that leadership scrutinizes at a granular level in rollup reporting (plus tied to Resource Management for time tracking).

Basically their jobs entail LOTS and LOTS of detailed sub-tasks they have to keep track of, but including them all on the project plan has made it unmanageable to keep everything up to date. I wish you could set the dates/durations at the parent task level, and just use the child tasks as a checklist of items that have to get done within that time period…but in order for that to work then you have to turn off dependencies (which we need).

I've tried having just ONE of the subtasks (the very first one under the Parent Task) function as a "dates" task for the whole section. Basically I make the start/end date and duration of this subtask editable/visible, and then use it as the predecessor of all the other sub-tasks (making the font white for the rest of the child tasks' dates/durations so that they aren't even visible). For some reason they just cannot get the hang of using it this way and end up making all the dates/durations visible for all the subtasks again. Some of them say they need them visible because their customers need to know due dates of each task at a granular level. Which I don't understand, because then there are so many that they don't even end up keeping them up to date anyway. Sigh.

I have also suggested putting the detailed subtasks in a comment instead of child tasks, but they don't like this because then they can't track which ones are done or not.

And then I suggested keeping only higher level tasks on the project plan, and having a separate "task checklist" sheet in their project folder, but they don't like that the percentage complete won't roll up to the larger plan.

I am running out of ideas. But having predecessors, dates, durations, percentages complete, statuses to manage for hundreds and hundreds of subtasks is just NOT scaleable and not working for us. I am lucky if they even remember to set the baseline at the start of the project.

What are some tricks some of you are using to make large/complex project plans more manageable??

Thinking out loud, sorry if it's unclear:

How about having two sheets:

• "Subtasks" sheet has all the tasks and subtasks but no dates.
• "Main tasks" sheet has only the parents with dates, not the subtasks

You link the two by have a unique field (Auto number generated by Smartsheet) with INDEX/MATCH formula, so you can bring the other columns like status etc…

If you're smart about the naming of the columns and main tasks, maybe both sheets can fit together in one report as well?

hi @Synon

you will need to essentially just follow the same process of the project metadata to portfolio.

Meaning - on the project metadata, add a field to capture the program name.

At the program level, you can create a program folder and a program roll up sheet. Related project metadata will need to be cell linked to that related programs roll up sheet and also to the portfolio level.

The structure should be:

Project metadata > program roll up > portfolio roll up(s)

You can leverage a single project metadata sheet to send to the program level and then a program level metadata to send both the program and project metadata to the portfolio. (Program level portfolio and project level portfolio)

Hi @AdamApexConsultants,

No, we are only on Business License, we don't have control center right now.

Hi @Georgie,

Portfolio

|—-Program 1

|———Project 1

|———Project 2

|—-Program 2

|———Project 3

|———Project 4

|———Project 5

Dashboards at Portfolio level should read Project details. There are no Program health monitoring needed or program date completion.

Hi Community,

Good day.

I used the PMO template of Smartsheet. I intend to insert a program level in between the portfolio and project, that will have its own metadata and dashboard. Can you please guide me on how I'll be able to insert this level (will it just be another field in the program metadata or a new folder? How can I setup the projects such that it will rollup at program and portfolio level?

Thank you.

My team manages many projects, each having a sheet with many parent and child tasks. I am researching ways to roll project data up into overall portfolio views for leadership but all of the PPM/PPO templates Smartsheet provides seem to pull portfolio data from an "intake sheet" which is not a process we employ. I'm finding it difficult to produce simple reports showing data by project because of all the parent/child nesting. We are in the middle of revamping our project templates and I want to make sure I design them in a way that will allow us to easily roll up data to a portfolio view (% complete by project, number of overdue tasks by project, all projects owned by a person, etc). What best practices do you all recommend for accomplishing this? I am using a roll-up row at the top of each project sheet and was thinking I'd utilize the Sheet Summary for certain things but would love any guidance you can offer. Thanks!