TRANZACT Accelerates Project Management With Smartsheet

When you’re the market leader in delivering high-volume sales for the top insurance brands in America and reach tens of millions of consumers a year, you have to be organized. That’s why TRANZACT first turned to Smartsheet in early 2017—and, today, is using the powerful work execution tool to support several requirements.  

According to Allison Bastone, a senior member of TRANZACT’s project management organization, the direct-to-consumer insurance sales company first started using Smartsheet to keep projects on track and enhance collaboration within the organization and across the enterprise. “The challenge really was to close some of the gaps in project management and provide user-friendly views of projects to internal clients,” she explains. “I got to go to ENGAGE in 2017 and when I came back, I decided everyone must use Smartsheet; they had no choice!”

TRANZACT PMO’s reliance on Smartsheet accelerated rapidly when the connector to software development tracking tool Jira was introduced. Bastone calls Smartsheet Jira Connector “hugely helpful, giving a lot of visibility to the business side of the house.

“It allows us to create priority trackers, project plans, and task lists in a more user-friendly manner,” she continues. “You get the best of both worlds with Smartsheet integrated with Jira. We’ve been able to create so many different views for all the different audiences and disseminate that information faster than ever before.”

In addition to saving time, Smartsheet is now delivering automation, collaboration, efficiency, and productivity gains for PMO as well as several other company organizations, including TRANZACT’s executive team, human resources, and facilities. Bastone said plans also are underway for a companywide Smartsheet adoption as well training to accelerate user proficiency and share tips and tricks.
 

When introducing Smartsheet to new users, Bastone describes it as a combination of spreadsheets, web-based word processing documents, project management tools, and a digital notebook “on steroids.” She adds: “It is a tool designed to make collaboration, tracking, and reporting easy and automated. It's a time saver, an organizer, and a tool that makes our jobs just that much easier to do.”

For Bastone, perhaps the most gratifying aspect of seeing Smartsheet become widely deployed throughout TRANZACT is the level of enthusiasm it generates among those new to the platform. “I think one of the great things about Smartsheet, as I get more and more people involved, is it gets people excited.”