Page 117 - Customize-Project-Plan-by-tailoring-Smartsheet

Customize your Project Plan
   
by tailoring Smartsheet

41.2. "Data Safety"

Would now like to talk about a difficult, because political, subject. I
think it's necessary to rise the subject "Data Safety", because it's im-
portant.

We should be aware that when we deal with Smartsheet than we
deal with a US-American company. Currently, 2025 and subsequent years, "America First", could be
forced to some degree onto Smartsheet Inc. through the government. "America First" means in my
humble opinion: "Any other country is considered second or even worse".

Could! I don't say, it is, or it will. If you are from a company abroad (so, not in the USA located) then it
could get difficult. This could be a "Business Stopper". If this would be the case then the same would
probably also apply to the biggest competitor of Smartsheet, the US-based Microsoft Corporation,

concerning MS-Project Online .

Nonetheless, I still recommend Smartsheet, because it's outstanding in its simplicity of the necessary
features to handle projects efficiently.

But as a solution, concerning safety reason, I recommend, that you export in Smart-
sheet your data into a xml or mpp-file on a regular basis (maybe once a day, at least
once a week, ...) so that you can later, in case of an emergency, this still import to MS-

Project 2010 ... 2021 "on-premise" (means: software is then not online; software is
then just installed either on your hard drive of your local computer or on the server at
your company).

Concerning your PM files, e.g., RFQ's, quotations, e-mails, etc., you should of
course save them in Smartsheet as attachments; but the originals should still
remain stored in a separate data structure at your company site. And anyway,
you still need to store them before you can drag and drop them to Smartsheet.

More information on the internet:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/america-first-trade-policy/

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2483116-data-
residency#:~:text=Data%2C%20images%2C%20files%2C%20or,therefore%2C%20your%20selected%2
0data%20region.

https://easy-software.com/en/glossary/on-premises/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML

https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/mpp-file-extension-how-to-
open#:~:text=What%20Is%20an%20MPP%20File,%2C%20budget%2C%20deliverables%20and%20mo
re.

© Hans Porzel, 10/2025 | CAPM® (PMI), PSM I® (Scrum.org), Smartsheet Prod. Cert® 2020 Page 117 / 209 pages