SmartSuite for Enterprise Businesses: The Work Management Platform That Scales with You

SmartSuite Compared to Leading Platforms

As businesses scale, their work management needs become increasingly complex. Juggling multiple apps and data silos creates inefficiencies. SmartSuite offers a unified work management platform tailored for enterprises. It combines flexible databases, robust documents, and advanced project management—eliminating the need to switch between tools constantly. SmartSuite invested heavily upfront to launch enterprise-ready, with extensive customization, security, and scalability. Its versatile templates and configurations enable supporting diverse use cases across departments. SmartSuite provides granular permissions and compliance certifications for regulated industries to manage sensitive data.

The platform's enterprise-grade foundation positions it as a formidable alternative to niche point solutions. SmartSuite is a relatively new entrant in the work management software category that combines powerful database capabilities with robust project management and document creation features. But how does it stack against established players like Airtable, Notion, and ClickUp? We learned more about this work management platform in our exclusive Software Spotlight podcast interview with Avi Hercenberg, Partnership Director at SmartSuite.

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Unifying Databases, Documents, and Projects in One Platform

A core value proposition of SmartSuite is bringing together databases, documents, and projects into a unified work management platform.

Avi Hercenberg, Partnership Director at SmartSuite, explained: “Jon saw the market shifting where it was possible to build these no-code software platforms with advanced technology that wasn't yet available when he built Archer. And decided to return to the market and build a new work management platform.”

Many competitors focus on just one or two of these capabilities. For example, Airtable excels at flexible databases but lacks integrated document creation and advanced project management. Notion offers significant documents and task management but less robust database functionality.

By combining these three pillars into one intuitive platform, SmartSuite eliminates the need to constantly switch between different apps to manage data, documents, and tasks. Teams can seamlessly link records, documents, projects, and tasks within SmartSuite to connect workflows.

According to Hercenberg, “We spent the first three years of the company building with about a hundred engineers over 16 million dollars just building the platform without showing it or releasing it to a single customer because we wanted to be enterprise-ready at launch.” This was time spent well, as customer reviews on the platform show they hit the mark with a solid solution.

SmartSuite for enterprise businesses

Launching Enterprise-Ready vs. MVP Approach

Unlike many competitors that started with a basic MVP and iterated over time, SmartSuite invested heavily in its technology foundation before bringing any product to market. SmartSuite for enterprise businesses provides a flexible and customizable work management platform that can scale as needs evolve.

As Hercenberg noted: “So the goal was to bring a ready-for-market platform. So not starting with the MVP approach where you're constantly having to catch up, but spend a lot of time building out a good infrastructure and a good, rich feature set on all three aspects.”

This substantial upfront investment allowed SmartSuite to launch with a robust, full-featured offering designed for large enterprises. The platform was architected to be highly customizable, secure, and scalable from day one. SmartSuite for enterprise businesses enables the creation of tailored workflows and data views to facilitate collaboration across the organization.

In contrast, tools like Airtable and Notion took a lighter-weight MVP approach, slowly building up features over time. Many of these competitors are still catching up to enterprise requirements around compliance, permissions, and customization. SmartSuite for enterprise businesses offers robust access controls and permissions to share information with partners and clients securely.

Adapting to Diverse Use Cases

With its flexible architecture, SmartSuite can adapt to support various use cases across departments like IT, marketing, sales, HR, accounting, and more.

As Hercenberg noted, “You can truly build out their own custom solutions, workflows, automations, without having to shape their business to fit the mold of SmartSuite, but rather have SmartSuite as the platform fit the mold of their business.”

SmartSuite starts users off with over 200 templates for standard business processes that can be easily customized. Views, fields, forms, and automation can then be configured to address unique needs.

Unlike niche tools focused on a single function like task management, SmartSuite provides the versatility required by large enterprises with diverse requirements. Its unified platform approach makes building custom solutions tailored to each team's workflows easy.

Advanced Security and Access Controls

With customers in regulated industries like financial services, healthcare, and government, SmartSuite prioritized advanced security capabilities and granular access controls. As Hercenberg pointed out, “We work with regulated industries. We work with…industries, and you know we work with financial and government customers.”

SmartSuite enables administrators to restrict access to the field level, ensuring that sensitive data is protected. Teams and individual members can be granted customized access permissions. Required compliance certifications like SOC 2 demonstrate SmartSuite's enterprise-grade security and controls. The platform provides the robust permissions required by large regulated businesses.

Key Takeaways

By combining databases, documents, and projects into one cohesive platform, SmartSuite eliminates the need to cobble together disparate apps. Its unified approach enhances workflows and productivity. SmartSuite focused on launching enterprise-ready out of the gate, with advanced customization and security required by large customers. Its robust foundation enables it to scale to support complex needs.

With versatile templates and configuration options, SmartSuite adapts to diverse use cases across industries and departments. The platform fits the mold of each customer's business processes. SmartSuite provides the security, permissions, and compliance certifications for large regulated businesses to manage sensitive data. This makes it a natural fit for enterprises.

While newer than some competitors, SmartSuite's unified work management platform offers critical advantages for complex organizations managing databases, documents, and projects. Its enterprise-grade foundation positions it as a formidable alternative to established vendors.

Robust Security and Compliance in SmartSuite

Security and compliance are paramount when evaluating work management platforms for companies dealing with sensitive data and regulated industries. SmartSuite was designed from the ground up with advanced permissions, controls, and certifications required by the most security-conscious enterprises.

Granular Access Controls

SmartSuite enables administrators to restrict data access down to the field level. Avi Hercenberg, Partnership Director at SmartSuite, explained: “You can also control the permissions down to the field level.” Individual fields can have customized view and edit permissions to prevent exposing sensitive information.

Permissions can be assigned at the team or individual member level, allowing precise control over who can see and interact with data. External users like clients can be isolated and assigned tailored permissions managed separately from internal team members.

Compliance For Regulated Industries

With customers in regulated industries like financial services, healthcare, and government, SmartSuite prioritized compliance certifications like SOC 2 from the start.

As Hercenberg noted: “We work with regulated industries. We work with…industries, and you know we work with customers in the financial, government-industry…”

SmartSuite follows regulations like GDPR for data privacy and enables workflows required in regulated environments. The platform provides the security and governance needed when handling sensitive data.

Access Control for External Collaboration

SmartSuite's granular permissions enable secure collaboration with external partners and clients without overexposing data. Customized views with filters can be shared externally to provide access to only specific approved fields and records.

Hercenberg explained: “You can generate a link, and this is a shareable link, and I can add a passcode and so on and restrict really what people see through this link.”

Client portals and embeddable links provide external access to specific workflows while restricting access to other data. These tailored permissions facilitate collaboration while maintaining control.

Enterprise-Grade Security

With advanced authentication options, activity logging, access controls, and compliance certifications, SmartSuite offers the security large regulated businesses require.

Hercenberg summarized, “We work with regulated industries…and we've gone through a series of certifications and continuously added more.”

SmartSuite provides the robust security and granular controls needed to collaborate while ensuring governance and compliance for organizations handling sensitive data across industries like finance, healthcare, and government.

Use Cases

Leveraging Integrations to Build Client Portals

SmartSuite integrates with no-code portal platforms like Noloco, Softr, and WeWeb to allow companies to provide customized client portals on top of SmartSuite workflows and data. As Avi Hercenberg, Partnership Director at SmartSuite, explained

“You can have your work happening within SmartSuite and then have some sort of customer portal that again dynamically pulls bits and pieces that you wanna expose to your client.”

These integrations enable building branded, configurable portals without engineering resources that provide external user access to specific SmartSuite views and workflows. SmartSuite for enterprise businesses integrates with hundreds of applications through Zapier and Make to connect systems enterprise-wide.

A key advantage is maintaining SmartSuite as the backend database while exposing filtered views in the portal. As Hercenberg noted:

“The integrations allow granular control over what data is exposed in the portals using views and permissions while keeping SmartSuite as the backend system.”

This facilitates secure external collaboration through client portals without compromising data governance in SmartSuite. SmartSuite for enterprise businesses delivers enterprise-grade security, compliance, and infrastructure to support complex organizational needs.

Additionally, bidirectional sync enables updates made in the portals to be automatically written back to the SmartSuite database. This powers real-time collaboration while ensuring changes sync to the source of truth.

By leveraging its integration ecosystem, SmartSuite can be the backend for customizable client and partner portals tailored to specific use cases and access requirements.

Leveraging Integrations to Build Custom Client Portals

As collaboration with external partners becomes increasingly critical, SmartSuite offers robust integrations to build customizable client portals on top of its workflows and data. These portals facilitate real-time engagement with clients while maintaining control over what information is exposed.

The Power of Integrations

Hercenberg, says, “You can have your work happening within SmartSuite and then have some sort of customer portal that again dynamically pulls bits and pieces that you wanna expose to your client.”

SmartSuite integrates with solutions like Noloco, Softr, and WeWeb to enable building branded, configurable portals that provide external user access to specific SmartSuite views and workflows.

Hercenberg explained that “tools like that would include. Noloco, Softr, Stackr, for those who are familiar, WeWeb.” These integrations empower companies to create tailored portals for use cases quickly.

Customer Portals

SmartSuite allows agencies to build customizable client portals directly, accessing relevant workflows and data views. These portals enable real-time collaboration while restricting the exposure of sensitive information. With granular permissions, clients can publicly access specific datasets and processes to track project progress. Live updating views provide visibility into workflows as changes occur. This facilitates productivity and engagement without compromising security or governance.

We believe that the most future-proof systems are designed from the ground up to be adaptable – built on flexible architectures that empower companies to customize workflows, integrate new technologies, and scale to growing demands. Mckinsey has a similar thought.

Partner Portals

SmartSuite enables the creation of tailored partner portals to improve supply chain transparency. Partners can view live inventory levels, forecasts, orders, and other workflows to coordinate more effectively. Views expose only approved data fields to partners selectively. Robust access controls prevent oversharing while allowing relevant visibility. This real-time access and communication streamlines supply chain execution across organizations.

Employee Portals

Internally, SmartSuite can be used to build custom employee portals for managing onboarding, expenses, IT tickets, and more workflows. These portals provide relevant stakeholders visibility into processes and data they need while restricting access to sensitive information. Employees get self-service access to required workflows through the portal. This saves time versus manual approvals and reporting.

SmartSuite For Enterprise Businesses Key Features

Maintaining Data Control

A key advantage of leveraging SmartSuite's integration ecosystem for building portals is maintaining SmartSuite as the backend database while selectively exposing filtered views in the portal layer.

As Hercenberg noted, “The integrations allow granular control over what data is exposed in the portals using views and permissions while keeping SmartSuite as the backend system.”

This provides external user access to specific workflows and data while restricting exposure of sensitive information stored in SmartSuite. The integrations facilitate secure collaboration through client portals without compromising data governance.

Enabling Real-Time Collaboration

Additionally, the integrations enable bidirectional sync, allowing updates made in the portals to write back to the SmartSuite database automatically.

As Hercenberg summarized, “Bidirectional sync enables updates made in the portals to write back to the SmartSuite database.”

This powers real-time collaboration, ensuring changes made in the portals sync back to the source of truth in SmartSuite.

Driving Adoption Through Branded Portals

Companies can drive external user adoption more effectively by leveraging SmartSuite as the backend database while exposing customized views via branded, configurable portals.

As one SmartSuite customer explained

“The branded portal with our logo and colors made our vendors more likely to use it than just giving them a generic SmartSuite link.”

While SmartSuite provides robust workflow and data capabilities, the customizable portals enabled through integrations allow for delivering a more tailored, branded experience to clients and partners.

Expanding SmartSuite's Capabilities

SmartSuite's integration ecosystem enables extending its workflows and data beyond the core platform to power specialized use cases like client portals.

As Hercenberg explained, “You can have your work happening within SmartSuite and then have some sort of customer portal that dynamically pulls bits and pieces that you wanna expose to your client.”

Companies can leverage tools like Noloco, Softr, and WeWeb without needing extensive development work to build client-facing portals on top of SmartSuite quickly.

The integrations empower anyone to assemble tailored solutions using SmartSuite for the backend system and customizable portals for the front-end interfaces.

Driving Innovation Through Integrations

By embracing an open ecosystem, SmartSuite fosters innovation through its integration capabilities. Connecting SmartSuite workflows to other tools via Zapier opens up countless possibilities. One customer noted, “The integrations with Zapier and Noloco let us build game-changing solutions we could never have with SmartSuite alone.”

While SmartSuite provides a robust platform, its flexibility enables combining other technologies to create novel solutions tailored to each company's needs. SmartSuite's integration ecosystem enables building customized client portals on top of its workflows and data to facilitate collaboration while maintaining control over what is exposed.

The integrations empower the creation of branded, configurable portals that securely provide external access to specific datasets and workflows. Bidirectional sync powers real-time collaboration, while SmartSuite remains the backend system of record. By leveraging these integrations, companies can deliver tailored experiences to clients and partners that drive engagement. SmartSuite provides the backbone, while the portals enable customizable front-end interfaces.

Conclusion

With its unified approach, SmartSuite emerges as an extensible work management platform that can adapt to diverse enterprise needs. It offers the backbone system while enabling customizable front-end interfaces via integrations. SmartSuite's enterprise-ready foundation provides the flexibility and scalability required by complex organizations. Its advanced customization and security empower companies to tailor workflows while maintaining governance. While newer than some competitors, SmartSuite's robust capabilities for managing databases, documents, and projects in one integrated platform offer critical advantages. Its emphasis on enterprise requirements makes it a natural fit for large regulated businesses. For organizations seeking an integrated solution that scales, SmartSuite warrants consideration.

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Watch our podcast featuring SmartSuite: In this  Software Spotlight podcast, host Michael Bernzweig interviewed Avi Hercenberg, partnership director at SmartSuite, an intuitive no-code work management platform combining databases, spreadsheets, documents, projects, and automation founded five years ago by former Archer Technologies executives.