Migrating from Slack to Smartsheet
Slack scores 4.5/5 on G2 — 0.1 points ahead of Smartsheet (4.4/5). If you're making the switch, here's how to migrate your team from Slack to Smartsheet step by step.
At a Glance
- De facto standard for workplace communication — most PMs will use Slack daily, and it appears constantly in job descriptions
- 2,600+ app integrations make it the central nervous system of the product team's tool stack, pulling notifications from Jira, GitHub, Figma, and more into one place
- Channels, threads, and Slack Connect enable structured communication across teams, departments, and even external partners/vendors
- Spreadsheet-familiar interface makes adoption easy for teams transitioning from Excel — minimal training needed for basic use
- Extremely powerful Gantt chart and dependency tracking capabilities, ideal for traditional project management and waterfall methodologies
- Robust automation engine with conditional logic, approval workflows, and automated notifications that scale across the organization
You gain with Smartsheet
- +Kanban boards
- +Gantt charts
- +custom fields
Migration Steps
Audit and export your current workspace
Before touching Smartsheet, document what lives in Slack: projects and tasks, custom fields, automations, integrations, and team permissions. Export a full CSV backup — most tools support this from Settings → Export. Pay particular attention to any workflow automations that your team relies on daily.
Set up your Smartsheet workspace
Create your Smartsheet workspace and replicate your project structure using tasks and projects. Smartsheet starts at $9/user/mo/user/mo with a free tier available — budget $0.25/user/mo more per user. Run with a single pilot team before migrating everyone.
Map your workflow equivalents
Find the closest Smartsheet equivalent for each Slack feature your team relies on. projects and tasks in Slack maps to tasks and projects in Smartsheet. Smartsheet supports custom fields — recreate your Slack field schema here first. Gantt-style timeline views are available if your team used them in Slack. Prioritise the critical path: task creation, status tracking, and assignment.
Import your data
Smartsheet supports CSV import for tasks and projects and has 20+ native integrations. After importing, rebuild your key automations — Smartsheet's automation engine can replicate most rules you had in Slack. Start with your most active project rather than importing everything at once.
Onboard your team
Run a 30-minute walkthrough covering the daily workflow: how to create tasks and projects, update status, and find your board. Expect a moderate ramp — most engineers and PMs hit their stride within a week. The biggest adjustment is usually the project hierarchy.
Run Slack in parallel for two weeks
Keep Slack read-only while your team works primarily in Smartsheet. This reduces risk and lets people reference historical context — old decisions, archived tickets, past sprint data — without slowing the migration. After two weeks with no new work going into Slack, archive the workspace and make Smartsheet the official home.
Ready to switch?
Read the full Smartsheet review for pricing, integrations, and team fit details.