What are the measures of excellent software for work? Perhaps it’s ease of use, a brief learning curve, and time- and money-saving capabilities. PayPal Holdings Inc. scored all of the above when it learned and implemented a brand new tool just by watching some YouTube videos.

The tool in question is Smartsheet Inc.’s work- and collaboration-management software. After just a month of watching how-to videos on YouTube and with zero help from consultants, PayPal had the whole company using Smartsheet, according to Jeff Cowley (pictured), senior information technology program manager at PayPal.

Cowley spoke with Lisa Martin (@LuccaZara) and Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Smartsheet Engage event in Bellevue, Washington. They discussed how Smartsheet has cut time, hassles and expenditures from work- and project-management at PayPal. (* Disclosure below.)

Whittling down midsection fat

The Smartsheet spreadsheet-based design is familiar to many and made the software easy to ramp within the company, according to Cowley. “If you know spreadsheets, you pretty much know this; if you’re a project manager, you know how to build a plan quite easy,” he said.

Previously, the company had quite a few employee-facing applications to complete different tasks. It has now consolidated them all onto Smartsheet.

Work and project data shows up in Smartsheet without anyone having to take time to create those records or reports. “Given the fact that that middle layer’s just really not there, we don’t spend a lot of time on producing content at all,” Cowley stated.

With endless tweaking in PowerPoint or what-have-you out of the way, updates to projects can be seen and acted on immediately. “This is real-time data that we’re talking, so if something changes 10 minutes before, it’s there on the dashboard. We’re ready to talk to it,” Cowley said.

After a year of use, PayPal was ready to make some cost-saving adjustments. “We realized, hey, we’ve got some high-priced consultants and we’re probably using half of their time at that point just in collating that data, so you’re talking about some heavy dollars that are being spent there just in administrative type work,” Cowley stated.

Trimming the fat there has saved the company at least $200,000, according to Cowley.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Smartsheet Engage event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Smartsheet Engage. Neither Smartsheet Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE