Roadmap and Desired Features

Hello Robert & Mike,

We're evaluating how we keep customers in the loop for upcoming features. What we found was that the information in the product roadmap we previously had would become inaccurate as we shifted our focus or completely realized how much time and resources it would take to develop features—so instead of leaving features up on our roadmap for months (sometimes years) we decided to take it down altogether.

We're working a way of communicating what features we're working on in an accurate and transparent way.

Currently, we make announcements in the community (check the right side bar) and update our release notes at the time of release: https://www.smartsheet.com/release-notes

I understand that these don't communicate what we're working on for future releases, but I believe that these are a step in the right direction. 

Hi Mike—

There isn't a way to subscribe to the release notes but that would be a great idea. I'll see if our Website team can add this option.

We also highlight notable features with splash screens in the application itself.

Hi Shaine,

I really don't want to come across as "that guy that always complains", but it's now been 10 months since your post and presumably over a year since the previously published product roadmap was retired.

I've only been using Smartsheet for about 6 months, and in that time it's become apparent that proper responses to information requests (like the above) and the resolution of fundamental issues with the platform are taking far too long. The response is almost always "we're working on a way" or "trying to determine the best method". This definitely conveys a message that there is a lack of commitment or urgency on the part of the product team when dealing with clients.

I'm being very careful not to shoot the messenger, as the Community team have been very communicative and I want to be clear that I'm not referring to feature enhancements, but critical bug fixes or requests like the OP.

A year to work out how to communicate your product roadmap is far too long considering the financial and reputational investment your customers have made in Smartsheet. We rely on Smartsheet partnering with us to deliver solutions to our customers. This includes transparent communications (obviously within reason) from Smartsheet, as our customers have exactly the same questions we do about where the product is headed and how that will affect future functionality impacting their projects and ultimately their business.

Similarly, taking 18 months to determine an approach (I'm not even touching on the actual remediation work) to resolving the outstanding issue with system dates only pulling the underlying UTC times (fundamental functionality for a project management tool) is beyond reasonable. As is the lack of even basic documentation for Smartsheet Control Center, which is annoyingly still in Beta 9+ months on from the time it was presented to us.

There is a ton of stuff that Smartsheet and the teams that work on the product do exceptionally well and for that I'm thankful. It's a product that really contributes to a collaborative project management environment. But equally, there are some areas that really need to be improved upon.