Running day to day BAU alongside large projects

LCWoperations

Hi there Community!

This seems like a fairly standard use case but not sure how the exact structure might works best in smartsheets — new here and on the trial Business Plan. I'd love some initial help thinking through what it could look like.

We are a small 10-person laser cutting/fabrication studio.

1. We run small 3-6 business day jobs for call-in/email private customers
   1. The day to day jobs are all fairly standardized (respond to inquiry, quote, finalize design files, order materials, cut job, ship out job) so I'd want to template and serialize those and manage them more kanban style.
2. We do one or two large 5-10 month large scale corporate jobs
   1. The large jobs are all bespoke and more typical large project management type deals, including cutting and assembly jobs.

The primary challenge is juggling available machines to cut the jobs for both the day to day and large clients. We typically have two/three people working through inquiries/quotes and then creating and scheduling jobs for the Technicians on the floor. Often, the BAU and Large Client sides butt heads and aren't coordinated well.

From what I see in Smartsheets, the large client jobs might be best as each having their own Workspace, but BAU might be a single workspace with a top level task/card for each new job that comes in, created by someone who's triaging inquiries into actual jobs for the team. These cards could then move around the Board view or Calendar view as necessary to plan the work.

Would love to hear how others have done similar work setups or if anyone can point me to existing posts that'd be amazing!

Neil

Isaac A.

Hi @LCWoperations!

For your day-to-day standardized jobs, you might find that using a Kanban-style workflow in Smartsheet is ideal for tracking each task from inquiry to completion. Smartsheet's Card View allows you to visualize and move jobs through stages like To Do, In Progress, and Completed with ease. This setup can also help your team keep track of job statuses, prioritize tasks, and manage workloads more efficiently.

For more details on setting up a Kanban-style board in Smartsheet, you can check out these helpful resources:

• How to Create an Online Kanban Board
• Free Kanban Board Templates
• Use card view to visualize your project

Regarding your large client projects, you could set up a dedicated Workspace for each client, organizing all relevant resources(Sheets, Dashboards, Reports…) under one roof. This will allow you to keep these larger projects separate while still giving your team the flexibility to work on day-to-day jobs.

For more information on how to manage Workspaces in Smartsheet, these articles might be helpful:

• Workspace
• Use Workspaces and the Workspace Panel

There might be different ways to structure your solution in Smartsheet depending on your specific data and needs, so feel free to explore and adjust as necessary.

I hope this gives you a good starting point! Feel free to reach out if you have more questions as you explore Smartsheet.

Cheers,
Isaac.