In the world of project management and planning, there’s no shortage of tools to help you plan, execute, monitor, and control your project. Microsoft Planner and Smartsheet are among the most popular options. In this article, we’ll discuss the differences between Smartsheet and Microsoft Planner in detail to help you make an informed decision.
What is Microsoft Planner?
Microsoft Planner is a lightweight task management app rather than a legitimate project planning software. It is integrated with Office 365, and anyone subscribed to that product can use it for personal or professional planning.
The Microsoft Planner interface, available on mobile devices and desktop computers, uses task cards in a Kanban board interface. In addition, it provides a few other essential features, including collaboration, charts, comments, etc.
Microsoft Planner is better suited for casual project managers and users without training. It is not ideal for handling medium to complex projects.
Microsoft Planner Features
Individuals and teams can use MS Planner to get insights into their projects, stay updated on approaching deadlines, and group and filter their tasks. The main features of MS Planner are as follows.
- Kanban View: MS Planner provides you single Kanban view where projects can be planned using cards.
- Collaborative Task Management: My Tasks show all your tasks, and team members can comment and attach files on the task.
- Assignment of Tasks: Unlike other task management tools, you can assign tasks to more than one person.
- Users Access: If you’re working on a project and want to bring in a vendor, contractor, or stakeholder to see what’s going on, you can add external access.
- Email Notifications: Email notifications keep users on track by alerting them of approaching deadlines.
What is Smartsheet?
Smartsheet is an online project management solution that claims to be a modern alternative to traditional project management tools. Smartsheet is a solution for project planning, collaboration, file sharing, task management, time tracking, and reporting. It is a versatile tool that allows users to create task timelines, understand resource capacity, track time, and analyze project costs. Smartsheet competitors include Microsoft Project for the web, Monday.com, Asana, Click Up, and Microsoft Planner.
Smartsheet Features
Smartsheet uses spreadsheets, referred to as sheets, as the basis of everything it does. However, unlike spreadsheet programs, Smartsheet has all sorts of project management and collaboration functionality. Some of Smartsheet’s features include:
- Collaborate: Using Smartsheet, team members can collaborate on the tasks.
- Project Management: You can create a detailed project plan, assign tasks, review timelines using the Gantt chart view, and use other complex project management features.
- Set up alerts: Set up notifications and task reminders within the sheet.
- Attach files: Attach files to the overall sheet or a row (or task) in the sheet.
- Request updates: Request updates from collaborators on the progress of their assigned tasks from within the sheet.
- Set up web forms: This enables you to set up feedback or survey forms and have users’ responses automatically populate a sheet.
- Publish the sheet: You can make it available via an external URL so anyone can see it.
Microsoft Planner vs Smartsheet
Both products are designed for project planning and management. However, when comparing Smartsheet and Microsoft Planner, the first thing to observe is that the applicability of both products is to different types of projects. Microsoft Planner is best for simple projects and provides functionalities like task planning, task management, and collaboration, and all this can be done using the Kanban board. Smartsheet, on the other hand, is designed to cover almost all aspects of project management, including planning, monitoring, controlling, data gathering, and collaboration using different views (like Kanban, Gantt Chart, Calendar (etc.)).
A detailed comparison of Smartsheet and the alternative Microsoft Planner is provided below.
| Features | Smartsheet | Microsoft Planner |
| Gantt View | √ | X |
| Calendar View | √ | X |
| Kanban Board / Card View | √ | √ |
| Sub-Tasks (collapse/expand) | √ | √ |
| Task Dependencies | √ | X |
| Reminders | √ | √ |
| Cross-Project Resource Views | √ | X |
| Cross-Project Summary Views | √ | X |
| Graphs/Charts | √ | √ |
| Share Online (internal or external) | √ | √ |
| Publish | √ | √ |
| File Attachments | √ | √ |
| Comments | √ | √ |
| Notifications | √ | √ |
| Change History | √ | X |
| Updates Requests | √ | X |
| Forms | √ | X |
| Smooth Integration with O365 | X | √ |
Conclusion
Smartsheet vs Microsoft Planner are designed for different types of projects. Microsoft Planner is suitable for simple projects, whereas Smartsheet can be used for simple and complex projects. Despite having their advantages and disadvantages, each software has a significant role in increasing productivity and can save you a lot of time. Evaluating all the above parameters is essential before making a final decision.
Find out how to ease your PPM usage and automatically migrate between Smartsheet and Microsoft Planner