All SmartSuite solutions can be modified to support your specific needs. Whether you've started from a Solution Template and just need to make a few adjustments or you created from scratch, you can make changes any time.
Starting with a template
You can always choose to create brand new Solutions from scratch, but we offer a full Solution Library of pre-built industry class templates that make it easy to jump start your processes and see your use case with real demo data.
Selecting “Start from a Template” will allow you to browse SmartSuite’s library of solution templates, which include more than 200 pre-built solutions that support a variety of project types and business processes.
We recommend starting with a template. Simply click + on the home page and choose Start with a Template to open the Solution Library. Search or browse solutions by Category, and click into any template to see a live, interactive preview of the solution.
Just click "Use Template" when you hover over a template card and the solution will instantly be added to your workspace.
Starting from Scratch
To start from scratch, simply click the + Add New Solution on your homepage and "Start from scratch" to open a new empty solution.
Solutions Support Your Workflows
Take a quick tour on the Structure of SmartSuite if you'd like, but generally you'll want to understand some basics:
Solutions are where you manage all your business workflows. Solutions contain multiple Tables that work together to power the work you do - projects, processes and everyday tasks.
For example, the Sales CRM template has an Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities and Sales Resources table, which serve as a central repository for each type of item. They also "link" together, so you can identify Accounts and Contacts for every sales Opportunity you have - even link to that perfect sales deck to close the deal.
Tables contain Records with Fields of information. SmartSuite has over 40 field types to capture any form of information you need.
The Grid View saved view is the most popular saved view type in SmartSuite, and it's similar to a traditional spreadsheet. Each row shows a Record and each column is a Field. Clicking to expand a row opens the Record in a page view to easily see information related to that item - who it's Assigned To, Status, Due Dates, etc.
Customizing a template
SmartSuite is built on a first principle belief: No two businesses are exactly alike. That's why we make it easy to quickly tailor templates to fit your needs.
As a Workspace Administrator or Solution Manager, you can easily Add or Modify Fields in a Table.
Consider the Hiring template, which has a number of unique values in the Status field. Perhaps you want to flag a job Applicant as someone to consider for a future position. From the Edit Record view, click the Status field "..." menu and select Modify Field Settings. From there, you can add a new status value for "Consider for Future Positions" and track candidates for future roles.
Connecting Your Workflows
One of the most powerful features of SmartSuite is the ability to "link" Solutions together, combining the information they store to tackle virtually any type of task, project or workflow.
Why would I want to connect my Solutions?
Many things that organizations do as part of their everyday work involve several functions, departments or types of data. A sales department might interact primarily with Customer and Order records, while the operations group needs Inventory information - along with information about customers and orders - to be able to send out shipments.
Let's sketch out how this might look in SmartSuite. Suppose that you have a Sales solution and an Operations solution, as in the diagram below:
If you already have sales and order information in the Sales solution, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to duplicate that data in the Operations solution. Instead, we can connect the solutions and share that information to build a complete picture of the entire lifecycle - with no redundancy!
All that it takes is a special SmartSuite field Type called Linked Records. Learn more about linked records here.