setting up my business correctly

Dan Moran

I have a home building company and I am not clear as to the best use of workspaces, work sheets and folders. Can someone help or do I need to hire an IT person

Tim McCarthy

Dan,

 

There are lots of introductory and other training videos, recorded webinars, etc that you will find extremely helpful. And for other specific questions, this community is great!

 

Good luck ---

JamesR

Dan,

 

Think:

• Workspace is a Filing Cabinet - if you have the key to the filing cabilate you can work on everything in it.
• A Folder in a Workspace is a Draw - and is only for organising your files in sensible chunks
• Sheets are the Files - If you are shared onlt to a sheet, you will only see the sheet in your list of sheets and only be able to access and work in the sheet and not on anything else in the workspace.
• Folders outside of a Workspace are personal, if you create a folder in the sheets area and move some sheets into it other users will not see them grouped together in a folder as Folders do not have sharing.
• Folders in a Workspace will be visible to people shared to the workspace but not to people shared only to the sheets.

James

 

J. Craig Williams

Dan,

 

The responses from Tim and James are spot on.

For Best Use, in my opinion, you want to take a look at what your organization already does. While the initial learning curve for Smartsheet is not steep, it is there.

After looking at the templates and videos, likely there will be an idea that seems 'natural'. That might be the best. Or close to the best.

If there are other interested parties (head of HR may have a different need than head of Operations), you may want to get them involved. Sometimes one-size-fits-all, sometimes not. 

I have several clients and worked at a company that used Smartsheet. Every system has been either slightly or drastically different. It depends.

Don't over complicate the system to start with. Keep it simple. There will be growing pains as you learn what works and what doesn't. Document major decisions on structure, especially if you use naming conventions (all schedules must be named "Schedule_PROJECT_STARTDATE").

 At my previous company, we implemented a system that worked for 3 good PM's but struggled when rolling out to 10 other PM's. Know your audience.

 

If you need more help (besides specific questions here on the Community), Richard Rymill at Smarter Business Processes gives free 1 hour consultations. 

James and I sometimes work with him. There are other consultants on here as well.

 

Craig

 

Richard Rymill SBP

Well said Craig, between James Viki and myself I believe we have an excellent range of Smartsheet Consulting and coaching skills which have been well tested so far but always welcome more challenges from Smartsheet Commuity members. 

We do offer an hour of Free Initial Consultancy online in all time zones. 

 

Also to say this is a brilliant community service, well done to Travis for setting it up. 

RichardR

SmarterBiz

 

 

Dan Moran

Thanks for the great input guys. Going to get my company bible out and try to see how it fits in to smartsheet. Richard, I may be contacting you for help

Tony Davidson - SmartSheet Certified User 2016

Hi Dan.. I have used SmartSheet for the last year and would be happy to chat and give you some tips.  I'm just about to complete the SmartSheet User Certification which I would recommend.  Tony