Fancy yourself a spreadsheet whiz? (Aka — you use Google Sheets like your life depends on it.) I mean you’ve had to tinker with formulas, pivot tables, and conditional formatting more times than you’d care to admit.
You’ve created collaborative spreadsheets on the fly and even used them during a project.
We all probably have — that is if you’re like nearly half of the world’s businesses (at least) who utilize Google Sheets for project management.
Google Sheets is a convenient tool for managing your project tasks and timeline but, if you are using it as your sole project management solution, you are taking an unnecessary risk with the success of your project.
If you’re a spreadsheet fan, then set aside a few hours to read this article, because I’m going to review some of the best alternatives to Google Sheets. If you love to use spreadsheets as an organizational tool, but feel constrained by how limited Google sheets are, then it’s time you try an alternative.
9 Powerful Google Sheet Alternatives To Help You Manage Projects
#1 ProofHub (Best Google Sheets Alternative)
ProofHub is a robust cloud-based work management software that helps businesses and teams to manage their projects, work, and tasks in one place. It is an easy-to-use tool that can be accessed from anywhere on the web and was designed to help you better plan, organize, collaborate, and deliver your projects on time.
ProofHub assists teams with scheduling their tasks in a simple, yet effective manner. It lets you create a project schedule by adding tasks and milestones. You can set the due date for each task along with assigning it to the team members. You can also add a description to each of your tasks so that your team members get a clear understanding of what needs to be done. With ProofHub’s calendar view, you can easily visualize your project schedule and keep track of all the deadlines.
ProofHub is perfect for teams of all sizes—it’s customizable enough for small teams and robust enough for large ones. You can use ProofHub on your desktop or the go with its iOS app, making it perfect for working remotely or on-site!
Top Features
- Kanban boards: These let you visualize your workflows and assign tasks to different stages of a project, so you can see at a glance where people are and what they’re doing.
- Gantt charts: This feature makes it easy to plan out projects and keep on top of deadlines. You can add milestones and dependencies to make sure your entire timeline is accounted for.
- Task lists: Add an unlimited number of people and assign them tasks to work on projects.
- Timesheets: Accurately track how much time your team spends on what tasks and activities. Add timesheets, set time estimates, track time manually, use timers, and create time reports in one place.
- Custom Roles: Another key feature of ProofHub is custom roles, which come with the option to create an unlimited number of custom roles, so you can assign specific rights to the people involved in your projects. This way, the right person will be doing the right task without any confusion or delay.
- Real-Time Updates: ProofHub also offers real-time updates so you get to know what’s happening in your projects as it happens. With this feature, you can stay on top of everything and ensure timely deliveries.
- Discussions: Create discussion topics, exchange ideas, give suggestions, send files and docs, and @mention people to grab their attention and loop them in discussions.
- Milestones: Don’t miss out on important events with automatic reminders. Signify checkpoints and progress in your work using milestones.
- Integrations: Use ProofHub’s API to seamlessly integrate with third-party apps and make data transport quick, easy, and effortless.
Sign up for a free ProofHub account and enjoy real-time collaboration.
#2 Airtable (Best for Small Businesses)
If you’re looking for a Google Sheets alternative, Airtable is a great option. Airtable is a cloud-based spreadsheet tool that allows you to create a database customized to your needs. I’ve used Airtable for my last two businesses, and it’s quickly become one of my favorite tools for managing projects (both of my own, and with clients).
You can use Airtable to manage multiple tasks as well as track your progress by creating “views.” For example, if you need to create a view that shows the total number of tasks completed in a given day, you simply create a new view using the “Total” formula. You can also perform calculations on your data using formulas such as SUM or AVG. If you want to make it even more customizable, various apps are available in the app store that will integrate with Airtable.
In addition to managing projects, you can also use Airtable to manage time tracking and invoicing.
#3 Zoho Sheet (Zoho Office Suite)
A part of the Zoho Office suite, Zoho Sheet is a web-based spreadsheet that lets you create, share and collaboratively edit spreadsheets online. It has all the features you would expect from a spreadsheet app including easy collaboration tools, support for multiple formatting options and conditional formatting.
With Zoho Sheets, you can easily manage your time, track your expenses, and keep track of your employees’ hours in this free timesheet. You can also generate invoices, pay bills, and create expense reports with just a few mouse clicks.
#4 Monday.com
You might be familiar with the “templates” feature in Google Sheets. This feature allows you to pre-format your spreadsheet and insert buttons, drop-down menus, etc. based on your needs. Now, it’s not bad but when compared to Monday, it’s clearly not great either. Why? Well, in Monday you can use their extensive template library and customize them according to your workflow needs.
That’s not all! In Monday there are tons of other features including; time tracking, automation capabilities, and even unlimited file storage that allows you to attach files from external platforms such as Dropbox directly inside any task or board on the platform.
#5 Smartsheet
There are many great tools that you can use as an alternative to Google Sheets. One is Smartsheet, which has over 5 million users and has been in the market for 15 years—so it’s not like a new kid on the block. The best thing about Smartsheet is that it is a collaboration tool and not just an app to manage your projects (though it can definitely do that).
The Smartsheet app also comes with Gantt charts and calendars, making project management easy. You can use pre-made templates or create your own spreadsheets from scratch. This app even lets you turn your Excel sheets into interactive workflows and then assign tasks to team members. It’s ideal for both small organizations as well as bigger teams who have to manage different projects at once.
Access, create, and modify Google Sheets from anywhere or any device with ProofHub!
#6 ClickUp
ClickUp was designed with teams in mind. It’s a cloud-based project management tool that gives users a single platform to manage all their workflows—from keeping track of their team’s tasks and deadlines to managing their own personal schedules. Lots of tools promise team collaboration; ClickUp guarantees it.
Plus, ClickUp offers tons of features that don’t even exist in Google Sheets. For instance, you can track everything from bugs to goals to employee performance in one place.
#7 Asana
Asana is a great alternative to Google Sheets for project management. Asana is another online project management platform with a focus on task management.
Asana also allows you to assign tasks to team members and view the progress of each task.
With Asana, you can create new projects or choose from pre-made ones, such as a company launch plan or a basic marketing campaign.
You can also see what’s coming up for your team by looking at your timeline, which gives you an overview of all upcoming projects and their milestones.
Asana allows you to create boards, so if you’re into Kanban-style project management, this might appeal to you.
#8 Wrike
Wrike is an easy-to-use project management software for teams to plan, manage, and collaborate on projects from start to finish. With Wrike, you can easily create and assign tasks, set deadlines, and quickly see who’s working on what. You can even customize how your content is displayed so it’s easier for everyone to find the information they need.
Wrike has several different pricing plans; each offers the same core features but differs in levels of access and user numbers.
#9 Trello
Trello is a free project management tool that helps you manage your projects visually. Trello provides a board on which you can add tasks and a list of tasks. You can name these tasks, add the descriptions of the tasks, set a timeline for the task, and then assign it to members of your team. It actually works like sticky notes on a whiteboard. The tasks are more organized since they can be moved from one state to another based on their progress.
The best thing about Trello is that it comes with an inbuilt timer. The timer allows you to keep track of time spent on each task. This feature will enable you better to improve your team’s productivity through improved time management.
Why You Should Consider Google Sheets Alternative?
Google Sheets is a free-to-use, web-based spreadsheet program offered by Google as part of its Drive office suite. Because it’s cloud-based, it can be accessed anywhere—as long as you have an internet connection and a web browser, or the app.
It’s great for creating lightweight spreadsheets and sharing them with collaborators. However, as your team grows, you’ll probably start running into some of Google Sheets’ many limitations:
Let’s start by taking a look at why Google Sheets isn’t cutting it as a project management tool.
- It’s hard to keep track of all your tasks in one place. You can do this by using the comment feature in Google Sheets, which is just copying and pasting your task list into each cell. Ergo, this makes it impossible to have an overview of all the tasks you have on your plate.
- If a member of the team that you have delegated tasks to misses their deadline, there isn’t going to be an alert sent through your workflow notifying the rest of the team that something has gone wrong.
- There’s no easy way to assign tasks or share updates with colleagues. Instead, you’d have to set up manual notifications for each person who needs one.
- There are no templates for common project management tasks like creating milestones, schedules, and budgets, etc. You either have to create these from scratch or use some third-party software that may not fully integrate with Google Sheets.
- There’s no reporting functionality which means if something goes wrong during your project.
- There is no way to track cross-functional dependencies for all of your projects like there is with Project Management software.
This can lead to missed deadlines, incomplete work, and other issues which can cause major setbacks and wasted time and money spent on dead-end activities.
Google sheets can be a great tool for tracking project goals, plans, and tasks. But projects need more than a free tool.
Tired of using Google Sheets? Give ProofHub a Try!
On a final note
Understandably, the above tools are not an exhaustive list of all the Google Sheets alternatives that you should check out. However, they are some of the most widely used ones and hence will serve you best in your quest for alternatives to this extremely useful program.
Regardless of which Google sheets alternative, you end up going with, the point is to use them to boost your productivity. Never waste another moment trying to keep track of tasks or projects. It is easy to get overwhelmed with so many things on one’s plate. Just streamline your work into these Google sheets alternatives, and your problems will be solved.
FAQs
Is there a free version of Google Sheets?
Yes! Google Sheets is free to use, and you can access it as a part of your free Google Account. If you don’t have a Google Account yet, you can create one here.
What kind of sharing access can you give with Google Sheets?
You can give collaborators edit access, view access, or comment-only access. They can share it with other people through the same options.
How do you import your data from google sheets to an alternative?
One way is to use the spreadsheet’s export function, which lets you save your data in a variety of formats, including CSV, PDF, and XML.
Why are users looking for google sheets alternatives?
Some people may not like the way that Google Sheets handles data flow or storage, while others may simply want an alternative to save time and effort.
How do you import your data from google sheets to an alternative?
One way is to use the spreadsheet’s export function, which lets you save your data in a variety of formats, including CSV, PDF, and XML.
Why are users looking for google sheets alternatives?
Some people may not like the way that Google Sheets handles data flow or storage, while others may simply want an alternative to save time and effort.
Subscribe to ProofHub
Get the latest posts delivered right to your inbox.
![Common Challenges in Project Management [And How To Solve Them] · Blog · ActiveCollab](https://activecollab.com/upload/blog/600/cover.png)
