Project Management with Smartsheet Control Center
Overview
The client, a leading financial institution, needed a Control Center-driven project management solution that allowed them to leverage Smartsheet to review, approve or reject, and manage organizational and departmental projects. As needed, the project plans would then integrate with Jira bi-directionally via the Smartsheet connector to manage those tasks in both systems without duplicating work.
Project
To kick off the project, our CloudWave Smartsheet consultants worked closely with the client to understand how project management was functioning within the organization at the time and what they envisioned for the future.
Our team determined that there were no processes in Smartsheet yet. Instead, proposals for departmental and organizational projects in need of approval were sent to the committee chair via email. These emails had to be manually managed and organized on an ongoing basis and presented to the committee members.
In addition to the email process, the client was using a combination of PDFs and excel files to manage projects. This led to poor visibility with no metrics or dashboards to track crucial financial data.
Using the info from this discovery phase, our team designed a future state architecture diagram for the client that would leverage Smartsheet’s premium Control Center application for automation and add the Jira connector in phase two, upon completion of the Control Center build.
The new system would include automation to streamline internal processes. For starters, new projects would be created automatically by Smartsheet when triggered. All of the necessary sheets, reports, and dashboards would be created for the users and eliminate manual setup and copy/pasting.
Smartsheet would then add the project to the appropriate workspace and share it to the appropriate people. Everyone who needed project-level information would receive it instantly upon creation.
The project would also roll up to the portfolio level: dashboards, reporting, etc. could be updated automatically by this process. Project-level information would be isolated and pushed to a higher level for easy review and sharing.
Once the client approved this proposed system, the CloudWave team began building the solution, creating the sheets, reports, dashboards, and processes, and considering both the requirements as well as Smartsheet best practices.
When the project management system was complete, CloudWave led the client in User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and created detailed documentation custom to the solution. We also provided various levels of training to the appropriate groups: end users, project managers, and admins.
Results
- A form that allows anyone in the organization to submit a new project proposal for review, reducing the time the committee chair spends aggregating emails for review.
- A streamlined process for the committee to review proposals, request additional information from the submitter, approve the proposal, or reject the proposal.
- Automated project plans, scoping templates, and other project sheets for each new project approved.
- Various dashboards providing increased visibility based on the needs of different audiences: departments involved in a project, review committee, administration, etc.
- Bi-directional sync between Jira projects and Smartsheet projects via the Smartsheet Jira connector to prevent duplication of work.
About CloudWave
CloudWave Inc. is an information technology consulting firm based in Virginia that provides end to end services from architecture to development in niche cutting-edge cloud technologies. CloudWave specializes in application development, integration, and cloud offerings - SaaS, PaaS, IaS, machine learning/artificial intelligence, analytics/business intelligence, microservices, and enterprise document management. Since 2012, the company has developed classified/unclassified, innovative, cost-saving, low-risk solutions to federal and commercial customers both within the United States and globally. The team has more than 30 years of exceptional systems and architectures experience managing complex and compliant projects.
CloudWave has successfully integrated Smartsheet with Salesforce, MuleSoft, Google Cloud, Azure, Jira, Hubspot, and more so that our clients can have real-time access to all relevant information across multiple systems.
With CloudWave on your side, you can feel peace of mind knowing that you are working with an official Smartsheet platinum Partner. Our team has the expertise and experience to determine your organization’s vision, and then design a powerful solution to meet those needs.
For more information, get in touch with us here.