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Smartsheet

Smartsheet Guide

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Find out how to access smartsheet using the Smartsheet basic guide (.pdf), don’t forget to log-in using the University of Essex portal (.pdf). Use this tool to create project plans, action plans and as a collaborative planning tool to help you successfully manage your project or collaborative work. See our advanced Smartsheet guide (.pdf) to explore the full functionality that Smartsheet has to offer.

Smartsheet is an online project management tool that we have purchased for you to produce project plans, action plans, actions logs and risks/issues registers to support you with managing your projects.

Request a Smartsheet

Take a look at our examples to help you decide whether you need a blank sheet, project plan, action plan, action log, lessons learned log or issue/risk register.

If you want any specific column headings, let us know in the comments section of the form as you will not be able to add them yourself. If at any point you would like to amend your chosen column headings please contact change@essex.ac.uk and we'll do this for you.

Using Smartsheet

Signing into Smartsheet with your Essex email address

Save yourself the hassle of setting up and remembering another account and password by signing in using your Essex login with ‘@essex.ac.uk’ after it. Our Smartsheet guide (.pdf, Essex users only) shows how easy this process is.

Online tutorials

Smartsheet offer a number of easy online tutorials such as:

Making changes to your Smartsheet

If you need to rename your sheet or insert/delete/amend/rename columns, there are a number of different ways to be given permissions to enable you to do this.

  1. Ask us to amend your columns you can contact us via change@essex.ac.uk and someone from our team will do this on your behalf
  2. Activate a 30-day free trial. If you’ve not already used a 30 day free trial, you can activate one which will give you permissions to make your own changes and or even set up your own Smartsheet from scratch. See our Smartsheet guide (.pdf, Essex users only) for details, and below for information on what you'll need to do when your trial ends.
  3. Request a temporary licence We have a limited number of licences we can lend out on a temporary basis. Email us at change@essex.ac.uk with the dates you’ll need a licence for to make your changes, and we’ll grant you a licence for that time period. Please be aware that due to the limited number of licence it may not always be possible to guarantee you a licence for the requested time period.

When your 30 day free trial ends

As we hold the licence centrally, you’ll need to pass the ownership of your sheet onto us by following the steps below.

  1. Go to the Sharing tab at the bottom of your Smartsheet, next to Alerts.
  2. In the Invite Collaborators box, type smartsheet@essex.ac.uk, and set the Permissions to “Admin” using the drop-down list.
  3. Make sure Send email is ticked.
  4. Click Share Sheet.
  5. Once we receive the email, we’ll accept the ownership which will send an email to you. In the email you will need to click Accept Request.

Our Smartsheet guide (.pdf, Essex users only) takes you visually through this process.

Contact us

Contact change@essex.ac.uk if you have any queries about Smartsheet.

Training

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We run a regular training programme covering topics such as Project Management, Lean, Benefits Management, Change Management and Process Mapping. All courses are advertised through HR organiser.

PM Network

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The Project Managers' Network regularly meet to share experience and best practice. The network is made up of staff who are interested in or responsible for change and project management.

Lean

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Lean is a methodology used to make improvements to processes and day to day work. Using Lean can help you to identify the work you do that adds value, and remove any wasteful activities.

Project one stop shop

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The one stop shop (.pdf, Essex users only) is a guide for Project Managers. It outlines the work required at the different stages of a project, together with toolkits, templates and guides for each piece of work.