Smartsheet

This is the tool we use every day, every hour, to track all of our enrollments and clients. Our team monitors enrollments and other CRM tools don't give us the flexibility to track multiple events and data points. It's Excel but on steroids with multiple functions and features. We're using it more and more every day for reporting up to our management team on progress for our client events.

I'm not so good at the formulaic side of things and making sheets talk to each other, or building a dashboard, is not an intuitive process. There are not step by step instructions or visuals which is something I need personally. It's a lot of trial and error in getting things set up. When I first started, it was very expensive to work with someone who helped build the infrastructure base and looking back there are many things I'd have done differently if I'd understood it a little better. A lot of the consultation time was wasted in trying to get the person to understand what we were trying to achieve.

Smartsheet is my preferred software for Gantt charts, and for quick & simple spreadsheets. The formatting features are especially effective, such as easy indenting and quick checkbox options that can be used with formulas. Gantt charts on Smartsheet are quick and intuitive with all the options I would like to have. Dashboards can be a nice way to have an overview with links to different sheets if you have a project with several documents, and are willing to spend the extra time and money to set it up.

The big Con with Smartsheet is that it lacks the in-depth features of similar spreadsheet software that is also usually freely available.
Conditional formatting the way you would like it to work can take a surprisingly long time, as it can take many conditions (often one per column per action) to accomplish what you would think would take a handful.
Automatic email sending from sheets sounds great but is still not very fleshed out, and options are pretty limited.
Complex formulas usually need to be done in several hidden columns or they can end up taking large paragraphs of hard-to-edit text and numbers due to lack of formula options. This can also make complicated spreadsheets pretty slow.
Bugs occur infrequently, but make me prefer to double check important sheets.

My favorite tool in Smartsheet would have to be a combination use of automated reminders, overdue milestone reports, assigning staff to tasks, and running detailed reports to check on my team's current progress. Paired with cross sheet cell linking, index/match where needed, and Datamesh when running large scale reporting when conditional formatting may be needed is a bundle of brilliance. Simply a great batch of tools for the job.

No file renaming option. Limited sheet summary report functionality. Limited batch update tools to revise and align current project sheets. Lack of permission settings without additional purchased feature packages.