We performed a comparison between Rally Software and Smartsheet based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlassian, Microsoft, Nutanix and others in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites."The product has excellent customizable reports."
"The most valuable features are in-line editing, easy custom view setup, intuitive and helpful visuals (e.g., contextual formatting) and the collaboration features."
"We use the roadmap features, and we're getting better at using dates to use the roadmap so that we can see if we're on target for work."
"Its ability to scale."
"The most valuable features of Rally Software are the executive dashboards, ease of use, and many other features. They have encapsulated everything that a GI can do, such as monitoring, maintaining, and then releasing. It's continuous integration and development."
"Reporting is much easier and faster than Micro Focus ALM, with CA AC built on web services... Also, the data is more granular when it comes to tasks, iterations, sprints, and releases."
"When it comes to the valuable features of Rally Software, it excels at burn-down charts, burn-up charts, and road mapping once it's set up. I particularly appreciated the new feature for releases and road mapping, which worked exceptionally well."
"The Defect feature. In one view you can see all your defects and you can push them into the different releases."
"It is my favorite project management tool. The reason for that is that it is very flexible. It is much easier to use than Microsoft Project in terms of creating custom fields. It is very similar to Excel. So, people understand it, which makes it a little bit easier to use for most users."
"Their support is awesome. We are on an enterprise plan and there is a customer success at Smartsheet and anyone from our licensed users can just send an email to them and they respond as soon as possible."
"The ability to update in real-time before meetings is great."
"The tool reduces manual labour and it is user-friendly."
"This solution provides easy collaboration and allows non-building users to use the system without requiring a license."
"I like that Smartsheet integrates Excel with a cloud-based project management software."
"What I found most valuable in Smartsheet is its project customization feature. It's a great solution because you can add in your own WBS. You can see it in Jira style, Kanban, and you can even do Agile and Waterfall. Another feature that's valuable in the solution is when you have those connections, you have that API, you have a sandbox, and you can make a solution, it's a tremendous product because you can pull data."
"It is a stable and scalable solution."
"The navigation within the tool sometimes is a little tricky for me. I'm sure with more use, more practice, I'll become accustomed to it, but some of the things just aren't intuitive."
"I would like to see more Kanban support. As it stands, it doesn't seem to have the features or the layouts that the teams really need to be able to execute their tasks. It almost tries to force you into more of a Scrum style."
"CA Agile Central does not have a workflow tool included."
"It's a bit cumbersome to manage the Project Picker. As we sunset teams or projects close out - but we still have test cases tied to those teams or projects that are being used in other spaces - we have this monstrous list in the Project Picker that becomes really difficult to manage and find, and we can't clean that up ourselves. It would be nice if it was easier to do that and not lose your history."
"A lot of the features that we would be looking to add, I am learning may not be within Agile Central, but part of another CA tool set."
"It is hard to track the changes. For example, we're in sprint 25, and then we have 26, 27, 28, and 29. Throughout that whole time, we're developing pipelines in Azure, moving to GitHub, creating pipelines, and working with teams. But sometimes, we need to revisit specific decisions made in previous sprints, like pipeline details. Maybe it's in our Azure Wiki, GitHub, or Teams, but it's not always consistent. I wish I could search for all tasks or stories related to that particular effort without needing to know everyone's individual stories or features."
"We would like more meaningful, customizable dashboards."
"What I don't like about it is that it is really hard to find old work to reference information and use the reporting section of the application in terms of trying to analyze trends. If I am trying to find out which interfaces took this long and I want to compare and measure improvement from one quarter to another quarter, the reporting mechanism within Rally is very troublesome. They have an Excel plugin that you're supposed to use, but you literally have to pull the raw data out before you can do the analysis. You can't do it within Rally, and if you can, it is a secret, and I don't know how to do it. It should have better, easier, and user-friendly reporting without having to use the Excel add-in. It is very clunky. There is a lot of data in there, but it is not organized in such a way that makes it intuitive. You really have to kind of look for where do you put your documentation or dates. Some customization is available, but it is not plug-and-play like Jira. When I switched from TFS to Jira, I just went and started using Jira, whereas with Rally, you kind of have to really get in and figure out what you need to do before you set stuff up, or you're going to get yourself stuck. You can just start using Jira and be successful."
"With a large quantity of data, the solution lags a bit."
"Smartsheet should continue to expand the spreadsheet-type functionality because it's limited currently. Most business users are familiar with Excel and Office, so Smartsheet should adopt a similar way of navigating the program."
"The system can become more challenging to use in more complex scenarios, requiring additional add-ons that can be quite costly."
"Smartsheet needs to improve the user interface."
"I would like if Smartsheet allowed more formulas in its sheets. I don't think working with formulas is as intuitive as it is in Excel. I use Vlookups and index matches in some of my sheets, and I had to find an outside consultant to help me build out those formulas."
"They should improve the solution's integration with API."
"We have to manually put in every dependency in Smartsheet."
"The solution should include integrations with other platforms or software."
Rally Software is ranked 6th in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites with 116 reviews while Smartsheet is ranked 4th in Project Portfolio Management with 34 reviews. Rally Software is rated 8.2, while Smartsheet is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Rally Software writes "Good discussion and note-taking capabilities but hard to track the changes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Smartsheet writes "Has customization, data pulling, and cross-functional global communication features; it's a secure solution". Rally Software is most compared with Microsoft Azure DevOps, Jira, TFS, Jira Align and OpenText ALM / Quality Center, whereas Smartsheet is most compared with Microsoft Project, ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management, Spreadsheet.com, Adobe Workfront and Planisware.
We monitor all Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
