The Best Tools for Online Collaboration

What Are Collaboration Tools and Why Do You Need Them?

Collaboration is a necessary and often beneficial aspect of most workplaces. Be it a team of developers trying to build a successful application or a group of creatives generating ideas for a brand launch, collaboration can make projects more efficient and improve outcomes.
However, when there is no good communication or coordination amongst members, things can quickly turn to chaos. Deadlines can be missed, errors can be made, and other mishaps can cause losses of time and energy.

That’s why collaboration tools have become so popular, especially in large companies or those with a lot of projects and remote workers. A collaboration tool is any software application that allows 2 or more people to communicate and/or work on the same project files together. These tools usually have a way to leave notes or comments as well as track progress; approvals can also be integrated into the process so it can be monitored by supervisors. Other popular features include calendaring for syncing meetings or appointments and document editing.

If you are working on a project that involves more than one person, chances are you will benefit from some kind of collaboration tool. (However, as mentioned below, some of these tools may be great for solo projects as well.)

Tools to Manage Projects and Tasks

One of the most popular types of collaboration tools is project management (PM) software. These are usually cloud-based applications that serve many purposes such as file storage and creating task assignments as well as commenting threads; these can help project managers track progress as well as get a good overview of the job’s progress. Since many of them offer similar features, this list will concentrate on those things that make them unique.

 

Asana lets you create simple to-do lists or organize enterprise-scale projects. Unique features include auto-promotion of tasks to help you prioritize easier, hidden teams for sensitive information, and don’t forget to turn on the flying unicorns in the Hacks tab so you can be rewarded when you’ve completed a task.

 

Basecamp promotes itself as PM software for remote work and workers and boasts over 3 million users. Features that set it apart are its campfire chatroom, which allows for real-time discussion in a less formal space, and Hill charts, which can help you quickly assess if you’ve gotten over the hump.

 

Monday is praised for its visualizations and ease of use. A popular unique feature is the ability to add freelancers or third parties to tasks. Companies also like that it has an open API so they can add their own integrations.

 

Podio separates itself from the pack by being completely customizable. Businesses can create their own apps from scratch or use ones created by others. Once added to a workspace, these apps can reference each other’s data, thereby saving time re-inputting information.

 

One of the features that many project managers love about Wrike is the ability to create tasks and projects with people via email. Wrike’s Intelligent Email will create a shared space and allow members to chat and exchange documents easily. It will also automatically remind users about approaching deadlines.

 

For anyone who is familiar with Excel, Smartsheet will be extremely easy to work with. However, it can do so much more than your typical spreadsheet, which is why it’s good for mid-to-large corporations and their projects.

 

Tasks are a fundamental feature of nearly every PM software program; however, creating them from scratch is a huge pain. Teamwork includes a feature to let you create task list templates that can be easily activated and applied to new jobs. Online content creators NeoMam Studios explain how they use it to manage over 40 projects.

 

One of Trello’s biggest stand-out features is its use of boards for projects and cards for tasks and/or greater detail. One cool trick is you can add GIFs to your cards to get people’s attention and perhaps add a little fun. On the more serious side, Trello’s UI can easily be adapted to Agile or Scrum methodology.

 

Project management is just one piece of the Zoho pie: the company has a whole suite of integrated software products Called Zoho One that cover all aspects of business. This includes Projects, Invoice, Mail, Docs, Chat, and CRM which can all work together in harmony.

 

Software developers favor Altlassian’s Jira for agile projects. Little-known features include workflow triggers to automatically advance issues and the Release Hub to quickly check a release’s status.

 

Airtable is like adding a GUI to your SQL database allowing for truly dynamic spreadsheets. One cool feature is view, which lets you visualize the tables in all sorts of ways, including calendars, image galleries, kanban boards, and Gantt charts.

 

Formerly G Suite, Google Workspace is the company’s cornerstone collaboration tool. It features many apps you are likely familiar with like Docs, Sheets, and Hangouts but puts them in one space, eliminating the need to switch between interfaces. It’s a good choice since you or your team are probably using some of these already.