How Much Time Smart Spreadsheet Saves on monday.com

We recently conducted a study to measure how much time the Smart Spreadsheet for monday app saves our users.

The results speak for themselves: the app helps save 30 to 60 minutes per employee each day – that’s up to 5 hours per user every week.

Study Overview

We invited 40 randomly selected volunteers to complete routine tasks both with and without Smart Spreadsheet and record the time spent. To ensure reliability, all participants had at least 6 months of experience with monday.com and 3+ months using Smart Spreadsheet.

We also asked each participant to share their job roles, helping us better understand who benefits most from the app.

Key Findings

Following the two-week experimental period, our participants provided the following feedback regarding their daily time savings:

• 1 user didn’t notice a significant difference (job role: Assistant Professor)
• 2 users reported saving up to 30 minutes per day (job roles: 1 – Project Manager/Product Manager/Team Lead/Analyst, 1 – Technician)
• 33 users saved 30 to 60 minutes daily
• 4 users claimed to save more than an hour per day (job roles: 2 – Project Manager/Product Manager/Team Lead/Analyst, 1 – Accountant, 1 – Event Manager)

Based on the results, 80% of users reported saving between 30 and 60 minutes daily with Smart Spreadsheet. A small portion – 3 users (7.5%) – experienced minimal time savings, while 4 users (10%) exceeded expectations, saving more than an hour per day. These outliers likely reflect individual workflow differences or unique task structures.

On average, the app helps users save 30-60 minutes per day, which adds up to as much as 5 hours per week per employee.

What Exactly Helped Users to Save Time

During live chats, our participants highlighted the specific features of Smart Spreadsheet that made the biggest difference in their daily workflows.

1. No need to switch between tools like Excel or Google Sheets – 37 users appreciated having everything in one place.

Switching apps can interrupt focus. Every time a user switches to Excel or Google Sheets to calculate or visualize something, it takes time to:

• Open the file
• Find the right tab
• Copy/paste or re-export monday.com data
• Re-import changes manually

This can waste several minutes per task, multiple times a day.

2. Familiar Excel-style features – 31 users found value in using cell formulas, filters, and conditional formatting right inside monday.com.

Users can immediately build reports, apply formulas, or highlight data without onboarding or additional training. This reduces ramp-up time and eliminates delays caused by unfamiliar tools.

Instead of configuring limited formula columns across multiple boards, users can:

• Use standard cell-based formulas (like =SUM, =IF, etc.)
• Reference other cells flexibly
• Reuse familiar logic from Excel

This saves time on setup, debugging, and rework – especially for complex cases.

3. Two-way sync between boards and spreadsheets – 24 users leveraged this for advanced calculations and better data visualization.

Traditionally, users export monday.com boards to Excel, make edits or calculations, then re-import or manually retype results. Two-way sync removes this loop entirely: changes in the spreadsheet update the monday.com board and changes in the board update the spreadsheet.

And rather than trying to recreate complex formulas in monday’s limited formula column, users:

• Use full Excel-style formulas
• Automatically push results back

This cuts down hours of repetitive work and eliminates the risk of outdated or inconsistent data to monday.com columns

4. Automated reporting – 19 users relied on scheduled .xls reports to share updates with external clients or stakeholders. 8 users mentioned they used reports as personal board snapshots to track progress over time.

Teams often need to keep people who don’t have access to monday.com (clients, executives, external partners) in the loop. Usually, users manually export data to Excel, format reports, and email them. With Smart Spreadsheet, they can schedule .xls reports to be sent automatically to specific emails daily, weekly, or monthly.

Also rather than manually backing up data or taking screenshots, with Smart Spreadsheet users can schedule reports to:

• Archive the current state of boards
• Create an audit trail
• Compare past and present progress

This avoids tedious manual tasks, including updates tracking.

5. Live, collaborative spreadsheet data – 16 users noted that working together with up-to-date data removed the need for manual updates and screenshots.

Teams can edit, review, and analyze data together in real time – just like in Google Sheets, but fully within monday.com:

• No duplicate files
• No miscommunication
• No version mismatches/outdated screenshots

Everything is centralized, current, and reliable – no confusion and wasted effort.

Our experiment clearly shows that Smart Spreadsheet for monday can save users up to 5 hours every week. Want to see the impact for yourself? Try it free – install the app from the link above and explore all its key features firsthand.