Smartsheet vs. Hive

Difficult and changing times make us rethink the nature of work. Most office-based tasks can be done remotely in the comfort of one’s home or elsewhere. All you need is the right tool — a project management platform that enhances productivity and team collaboration.

Smartsheet and Hive are two competing project management software solutions that combine traditional tools and modern technology.

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Smartsheet vs. Hive: An overview

An online project management software, Smartsheet is a dynamic and powerful spreadsheet-like platform that helps users manage different types of data work, projects, and communications. More than 40,000 businesses across industries in over 160 different countries are using the tool.

Hive is a productivity software option that provides powerful project and process management tools, letting you work your way from anywhere. It empowers your team to manage projects the best way they can by flexibly customizing the platform. Developed in 2015, this New York-based software is designed for all business types and sizes.

Viewing your projects 

There’s a lot you can do to tweak and customize in Smartsheet’s intuitive dashboard. It has all the tools you need in managing projects and work data, giving you more flexibility by letting you customize their functionality to suit your preferences. The platform allows you to create and share calendars, track budget and team performance, perform cost analysis, and visualize complex data. It also provides templates for fast actions and solutions.

You can plan your project in multiple layouts. Hive lets you flexibly switch between views of your project: Gantt, Kanban, Calendar, and Table. When you add an update in one layout, for example, in Gantt, it is automatically reflected in the three others. Hive’s intuitive and customizable dashboard lets you boost your team’s productivity with its range of robust features. Its analytics feature lets you track your project’s progress, identify risks, and generate reports in real-time. You can also easily plan upcoming projects, assign tasks, and schedule activities with its Resourcing feature. 

Working with your team  

Smartsheet is designed for team collaboration, making the work simple and the communication and file sharing secure. With Smartsheet, you can allocate resources to every member of the team in real time to make collaboration easy and more engaging. It simplifies processes, allowing for a balanced workload so that everyone can focus on the tasks at hand and accomplish them on time.

With Hive, collaboration is made simple as you can communicate with your team by sending direct messages or chatting with groups. It lets you securely upload or attach documents directly to tasks or messages, allowing team members to access the files. You can also use its Forms to gather information from your team rather than emailing them one by one, so your team can move faster and accomplish objectives quickly.

Streamlining your workflows   

Smartsheet lets you streamline your business processes and workflows. Thus, it is easy to plan and manage every moving aspect of your projects such as task lists, work data, scheduling, and other activities. You can view your project in its customizable Gantt chart. Smartsheet also lets you upload and request files or documents. You can also track and solve issues that arise along the way, monitor your team’s performance, follow the project’s progress, and generate and share reports with your team and stakeholders.  

Hive allows you to create and customize your workflows, automate repetitive tasks, streamline complex processes, and simplify communication. You can combine several projects and get both the big picture and the details of each. Since processes are streamlined, it is easy to track the project’s progress, team performance, and the statuses of assigned tasks. It lets you simplify your to-do list and use customizable and reusable action cards and templates for quick solutions like assigning tasks, attaching files, creating actions, and setting dependencies. You can also comment directly on the action cards.

Integrating other tools 

Smartsheet works well with other platforms and productivity tools. It integrates seamlessly with Slack, Google Apps, Box, Dropbox, VMware, Amazon Web Services, and Salesforce.  

Hive has over 1,000 integrations, so it is easy for you to connect to different platforms, productivity tools, and applications and organize them in one place. Its integrations include Box, Jira, Zoom, Google Drive, Gmail, Box, Slack, One Drive, and Dropbox.

Which productivity platform suits better? 

Smartsheet appears to be a more traditional project management platform, especially with its spreadsheet-like design. But it has powerful tools that your team needs to accomplish the tasks and reach your goals. Hive offers more out-of-box tools like simplifying feedback loops, collecting information from clients, employing analytics, and tracking time. And you can view your projects in four different layouts, which is its distinct advantage over Smartsheet.

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