AI for Data Analytics in Smartsheet

Anastasia001

Hi Community! Are you excited about AI? Please help us understand what questions you have about your data in Smartsheet, so that we can explore whether AI could be a potential solution to answer those questions.

We’d really appreciate your input on the following:

• What questions do you try to answer when looking at your projects and processes in Smartsheet? i.e. Is my team on track to complete a project? What tasks are at risk? What is the status of this project?
• What metrics are the most important to you? i.e. average time spent on a task
• In what shape or form would you like to receive the answers to your questions? i.e. metric, chart, text summary, etc.
• Where would you go to get these insights? I.e. sheet, dashboard, workspace, workapp?

Thank you!

ErikB

Hi Anastasia!

• When looking at task trackers or project plans, usually I'm most interested in the meta-analysis of the data rather than the direct questions. Examples might include looking at the allocation of tasks or resources across different projects (or parents rows, for instance).
• I usually want to know about the extremes, such as tasks that are changing frequently (i.e. the end date or status constantly changes) as well as those tasks where details are not changing at all. Other examples of things I want to be able to understand (without necessarily building all the formulas myself) are around hierarchy and the structure of data in the sheet. For instance, what rows have the most or least children?
• In most cases, a chart or table of metrics are my favorite way to receive information I'm already familiar with.
• Honestly, if I could have anything I want, it would probably be something like Smartsheet taking a screenshot of my preferred dashboard and sending it to me in a chat app such as Microsoft Teams.

Thanks,

Erik

Sheryl P

1. We look at Service Level Agreements - some of our projects start at a certain time and need to be finished by a certain time. They cross over midnight - which has been challenging to calculate if the particular task (usually an install) was completed by the agreed upon SLA. Start 8:00 pm Monday - Finish 6:00 am Tuesday.
2. As we move through the activity during that time frame - we would like to know if a step/task is running longer than expected. PM's would use this to check in on work that is running long.
3. Combining data from multiple sheets or sources into a comprehensive picture of project

Could you indicate the form -metric, chart, text summary - Generally we would combine text and charts and trends in a "status report" - It would be great if people navigated to information - but all too often it goes into an email.

PowerBI - may be where people are getting used to finding data - if the recipients are not SmartSheet users - we end up using published links due to the restrictions with workapps & free collaborators.

I will ask some of my colleagues as well.

ChristineD

I would like to be able to show analytics in a dynamic manner. For example, I have four different categories of leads that each have a different metric. I would like to create an easy-to-absorb chart that is color-coordinated based on whether something is meeting our expectations (above or below targets or industry baselines).

I understand that Smartsheet has plugins with other platforms. What are the alternatives if my organization did not purchase these plugins?

SPHRProject

Hi Erik B, what I need is a way to quickly reschedule tasks that are past due without impacting current resource hours or the overall schedule timeline. I have multiple items past due and the team does have some available days, I'd like to be able to determine which tasks could be worked on it the available time for the right resource that would bring the biggest impact to the overall project schedule to bring it back into line with the planned schedule.

Annaleah Morrow

We have sheets that have project manager forecasted hours by project, per month. It would be nice to help analyze 'what if' we were to shift a project manager to add another project without changing the original data.