Businesses today struggle with scattered information across siloed tools, endless status meetings eating productive time, and critical workflows that rely on manual processes – be it complex product launches, marketing campaign orchestrations or company-wide transformations.
While 70% of companies have digitized some workflows according to Forrester, 64% still have onerous excel-driven workflows that lead to inaccuracies, version mess, and disconnected teams according to G2 findings.
This is where collaborative work execution platforms like Smartsheet help businesses model cross-functional workflows from end-to-end bringing much needed visibility, alignment and speed.
Smartsheet has seen massive 350% enterprise growth in recent years crossing 90K customers as organizations digitize processes to enable remote collaboration at scale. Regular business units relying on Smartsheet day-to-day span:
- Marketing Ops: Campaign planning, asset tracking
- Product/ Engineering: Roadmap planning, release tracking
- Professional Services: Project delivery, resource planning
- Customer Success: Milestone tracking, renewal management
A key accelerator Smartsheet provides for teams getting started is templates – pre-built sheets spanning different business functions containing integrated views, logical columns,starter workflows and examples.
This comprehensive guide will arm you with an expert perspective on:
- Key Benefits of Templates
- Overview of Categories
- Real-World Departmental Use Cases
- Step-by-Step Personalization Directions
- Best Practices For Driving Adoption
- Executive Considerations Around Governance
Let‘s get started.
Why Smartsheet Templates Provide High Business Value
Here are 4 compelling benefits well-designed templates offer organizations:
1. Setup Work Processes in Minutes Not Months
Industry templates based on field expertise allow you to shortcut typically prolonged planning cycles. For example Quick Start templates help you rapidly build:
- Recruiting – Applicant tracking with multi-stage interviews & candidate evaluations
- Professional Services – Project delivery checklists with dependency management
- Support – Customer case management to accelerate responses
2. Standard Operating Procedures With Lower Training Needs
Leveraging templatesAS your workforce goes remote-first, evenly applying processes is crucial. Shared templates store tribal knowledge allowing teams to:
- Onboard 5X faster through self-service standard models vs. pointing to old pdfs or wikis
- Increase role portability enabling people managers to transparently track staff needs
- Reduce employee re-training via having consistent templates for all to follow
3. Accelerate Strategic Transformation Journeys
Even major overhauls like migrating business to cloud, rolling out new ERP systems, or consolidating globally dispersed teams can leverage templates tailored specifically to accelerate change initiatives covering communications, planning, and stakeholder reporting in interactive shells.
4. Extract More Value from Smartsheet Faster
For existing customers, templates help you fully utilize the platform faster by showcasing end-to-end examples tailored to your problem space that allow you to:
- See product applied in realistic ways beyond basic notes and task tracking
- Limit scope creep by having clear models directing capability consumption
- Make capabilities stick driving adoption with recognizable out-of-box templates already configured
Now that you see the immense value prop, let‘s break down everything that templates can help optimize inside your organization.
Overview of Template Categories
Smartsheet offers multiple template formats to accelerate work across different business domains.
Popular categories include:
| Template Type | Description | Use Cases |
|---|---|---|
| Sheet | Structured grid-formats allowing flexible data tracking with views like Gannt charts | project plans, account trackers, budgets, inventories |
| Form | Collect data via online forms for requests, registrations, applications | custom surveys, event signups, reimbursement requests |
| Report | Visual data representation for quicker insights and presentation | sales reports, campaign analysis, product adoption |
| Dashboard | Single pane to analyze key metrics from multiple reports | department KPI tracking, program portfolio analysis, executive insights |
| Other Assets | Calendar: Schedule events and meetings Automation: Trigger actions based on rules |
Resource allocation calendar, progress alerts based on incomplete tasks |
Now let‘s get into the details around the most popular template use cases by business function.
Smartsheet Templates Showcase for Key Departments
For major departments, here are some of the most useful templates to accelerate workflows.
Sales & Business Development Templates
Use Case 1: New customer acquisition
The sales pipeline template provides end-to-end tracking from leads to closed deals covering stages like:
- Lead capture
- Opportunity analysis
- Quotes
- Negotiations
- Contracts
- Payments
Comes preloaded with deals scorecard automations, sales activity tracking, performance dashboards to enable sales leaders to meet growth goals.
Use Case 2: Account management & expansion
The customer account review template allows planning and tracking quarterly business reviews (QBRs) to maximize existing customer wallet share covering metrics like:
- Renewal risks
- New sales opportunities
- Expansion revenue
- Account health score
Notification alerts ensure no accounts slip through the cracks.
Marketing Template
Use Case: Campaign execution
From planning to launch to post-campaign analysis, this integrated template connects the disconnected pieces in 8 key stages:
- Goals setting
- Target segment analysis
- Campaign budgeting
- Asset creation
- Multi-channel distribution
- Automated engagement tracking
- Lead management
- Impact analysis
Track realtime campaign progress with the in-built GANTT chart.
Professional Services Template
Use Case: Client project delivery
The project delivery template acts as the project command center to help consulting teams deliver complex initiatives successfully covering core aspects like:
- Detailed work breakdown structure
- Task assignments to delivery team
- Milestone planning
- Timeline tracking
- Billable hours capture
- Budget vs actuals
- Risk management
- Signoffs tracking
With 60% services teams still relying on Excel and Powerpoint for project management according to Accenture, a template like this adds much needed guardrails.
Human Resources Templates
Use Case: Recruitment life cycle
Talent acquisition teams can reduce days to fill open positions leveraging applicant tracking system (ATS ) templates which standardize key hiring stages:
- Opening requisitions
- Job posting management
- Candidate application collection
- Screening
- Evaluation kit preparation
- Interview scheduling & feedback
- Offer decision tracking
- Joining formalities
Bulk actions, intelligent scoring and automation provide enhanced oversight into hiring velocity.
Information Technology Templates
Use Case 1: Incident management
IT teams frequently rely on cumbersome spreadsheets or manual forms to log, classify and resolve incoming tickets. The incident management template structures this process with:
- Ticket fields for category, priority, description
- Impact assessment
- Assignment to technical teams
- Resolution progress tracking
- Knowledge capture for future diagnosis
- Reporting by type, department, asset class
Use Case 2: Systems audit compliance
Prepare for major audits like SOX, ISO with this audit readiness template spanning:
- Discovery questions
- Interview schedules
- Finding/observation logging
- Remediations clarification
- Risk assessments
- Final report signoff
Template allows collaborating easily instead of managing tedious audit prep through documents.
Expert Guide to Customize Templates for Your Work
While out-of-the box templates include comprehensive coverage for mainstream scenarios, you may need to modify them to suit your organizational intricacies.
Here is a step-by-step guide to adapt templates easily without losing existing blueprint value:
Step 1: Make It Yours
Apply branding, terminology familiar to your teams so it has a recognizable, friendly face:
- Insert logo, stylized headers
- Update pronouns from third to first person
- Rename fields to match internal language
Step 2: Add Missing Fields
Does your process require capturing dimensions not covered in the base template? Simple additions like:
- Reference ID for external systems
- Additional sub-status like technical qualification stage
- Custom priority scale
Step 3: Configure Rules-Based Automations
Reduce manual oversight needed by setting up automatic actions. Example rules:
- Send email alert when deadline approaching
- Flag row red if budget exceeded
- Notify project manager if risk score increases
- Increment deal stage on document signature
Step 4: Structure Info Hierarchy
Templates bring together a wide array of information. Set up organization fit for your needs:
- Group related fields into Summary, Details, Administrative tabs
- Bubble key fields like CRM ID, Account Name to top
- Layer grid breakdown into hierarchy of folders, sheets, views
Step 5: Connect External Data
Merge relevant data from complementary platforms like Jira, Salesforce, Tableau which feed processes tracked in templates:
- Consolidate project issues from Jira
- Bring latest Salesforce account scores
- Embed PowerBI dashboard for sales metrics
2-way sync automatically keeps information current.
Step 6: Drive Adoption with Training
Help users get quickly acclimated to new templates through:
- Scheduled demo oriented around actual workflows
- Cheat sheets with field definitions, views explanation
- Chat channels to get answers in real-time
- Available admins who can walkthrough scenarios
With these 6 steps, you can take template customization from start to finish transforming the blueprint into your picture perfect solution!
Best Practices For Driving Consistent Usage
Beyond setup, cultivating mindset and processes centered around consistency and transparency is key to long term Smartsheet template success.
Here are 8 overarching cross-team best practices to consider:
1. Centralize Control and Access
To govern templates, identify power administrators who take responsibility for core models. They control access and change policy.
2. Limit Template Sprawl
While custom templates help specialize, having 5+ templates for similar purposes causes confusion. Standardize around 1-2 templates for a defined process.
3. Promote Template Reuse
Discourage building one-off templates by sharing links to existing cross-project ones in intranet knowledge base sites.
4. Build Compliance Into Templates
Applying security, auditing principles upfront into templates makes them enterprise grade – enforcing data policies, restricted sharing, limited exports etc.
5. Shape Consistent Terminology
Align templates to approved enterprise taxonomy published in knowledge bases so the entire organization calls the same things by same name.
6. Embed Training Content
Link new user guides, videos, sample scenarios and FAQs directly inside the template sheets to assist onboarding.
7. Showcase Leadership Usage
When executives actively share how they use Smartsheet templates for their business reviews, planning sessions or strategy meetings, managers below see the value faster.
8. Promote Best Practices
Creating centers of excellence around template excellence and publishing model examples, customization playbooks, change control procedures etc. for the community to leverage avoids poor data quality or template duplication.
Key Executive Considerations Around Templatization
For CXOs overseeing large scale Smartsheet expansions spanning divisions, here are 5 considerations:
1. Balance Standardization With Flexibility
While templates codify workflows, leaving room for local experimentation based on team dynamics, customer needs etc. allows more idea flow balanced with standards.
2. Audit Early, Audit Often
As usage grows, continuously sampling templates from the lens of security, access roles, restricted features prevents policy violations – like publicly sharing sheets with sensitive data.
3. Shape Governance and Admin Roles
Centralized template management avoiding fragmented owners is essential – with roles responsible for core model authoring, modifications approval, compliance reporting and access permissions.
4. Instrument Executive Reporting
Embed real-time dashboard visibility into templates for accelerated insights – whether time to fulfil requests, project delivery pace, sales cycle or other metrics to guide senior decision makers.
5. Develop Responsible Rollout Roadmap
Piloting changes with smaller groups, integrating feedback, providing ample training and having rollback procedures before large scale template rollouts is vital so transformations realize goals in a controlled fashion.
Following these foundational leadership principles in tandem with the 6 customization steps and 8 best practice paves the way for long term success with Smartsheet powered templates transforming how your organization gets work done.
Now over to you – evaluate where your biggest workflow optimization opportunities exist across sales, marketing, services, HR and IT along with relevant starter templates. Then apply the recommendations to make templates work smoothly across the breadth of your enterprise.
Go-To Resource List
Top Templates by Department:
- Sales Templates
- Marketing Templates
- Services Delivery Templates
- HR Recruiting Templates
- IT Helpdesk Templates
Expert Guides:
- End User Template Training Best Practices
- Administrator Guide to Governing Templates
- Templates Customization Playbook
- Expert Program Manager Consultation for Template Success (Smartsheet managed services)
Ready to kickstart your key workflows? Get hands on with 100+ industry templates available in Smartsheet today!
