Putting many projects into one sheet potential pitfalls

bdawson

I supervise a small group that may have about 20 projects running. Project timelines vary from 3 weeks to 1 year in duration. I am trying avoid having multiple project deadlines fall on top of each other, so I have been looking for a tool to track project milestones at a high level. I have been watching smartsheet tutorials and I like the gantt charts, filtering functionality, reports, and dashboards features. I also like the ability to automate flags or status of projects that will be helpful for preventing projects from falling through the cracks.

I only purchased the Pro Plan, as I am the only one using it. Thus, I lose a lot of the functionality. In particular, I cannot have a report for multiple sheets. I am planning on just using one sheet for all projects and then I can create multiple reports and dashboards to summarize the information in a meaningful way. I guess I am wondering, is there a reason not to put all projects into one sheet? I plan on putting a checkbox function that moves projects to an archive sheet after manually checking off the items (say, if all boxes within a parent are checked off, then archive one week after). This would at least prevent the sheet from having too many rows.

Thanks

ShelbyWarren

@bdawson If you are the only one updating the sheet then it should work fine. Is this mainly for the high-level milestone schedule of each project or will you also be tracking other items?

ShelbyWarren

@bdawson If you are the only one updating the sheet then it should work fine. Is this mainly for the high-level milestone schedule of each project or will you also be tracking other items?

bdawson

At this point, I anticipate only tracking high level milestones, which include “want to start by” and “need to start by” dates in addition to actual deliverables. This way I can use some automation functionality to change the status of a projects health.

I imagine trying to track actual workflows would drive me crazy, because they ebb and flow as new work comes in at higher priority, other anticipated schedules slip, etc. For example, I may have a project that only has a few tasks that involves 500 hours or work. I may set the schedule to be 6 months to allow for play in the work schedule. It may get done early. However, if it doesn’t start at a certain point, the likelihood of meeting the schedule will decrease.

ShelbyWarren

I am in the middle of creating a high-level milestone-tracking solution. If you'd like to see it for ideas for your own, email me at swarren@patriotdevelopment.com and I'll share a copy of the sheets with you.