Online collaboration is the process of people working collaboratively on a task or project, usually involving two or more persons and often supported by information technology. It is a collaborative activity that facilitates coming to consensus or making a decision. Having an online meeting is a kind of online collaboration, although it is only one type of online collaboration.
Collaboration is the new normal in the workplace, with employees no longer expected to work cut off from one another. This focus on collaboration should mean improved efficiency and increased productivity, but can only be achieved if you have the best tools in the first place.
Online collaboration tools are a great opportunity for businesses to improve communication and increase productivity between employees. This means increased profits and a better chance of marketing a successful brand. But what defines an online collaboration tool, and what makes the best free online collaboration tools so special?
These tools could offer everything from cloud document storage for managing daily tasks, to video conferencing for online meetings, and all work just as well on mobile devices as well as desktops and laptops.
Above all, everything should be clear, easy to understand, simply to use and reduce misunderstanding. Every employee should be empowered to be able to speak to the right person, wherever they are in the company, to address the same problem. And then solve that problem within an acceptable workflow.
The days of collaborative working are here, so in order to make the most out of your team, here’s our pick of the best online collaboration tools currently available.
Slack
Slack is without doubt a mighty collaboration tool, with millions of users around the globe. It’s an incredibly smart platform, and you can get it on mobile and desktop devices. It allows for the sending of direct messages (DMs) and files to a single person or a group of employees, and there’s the ability to organize conversations into different channels (perhaps for specific projects, one for technical support, general chat, and so forth).
The app also supports video calling. You can use the feature to talk to your colleagues about projects and work in-depth, without having to type everything into a DM. While this isn’t a replacement for cloud storage services, you are able to drag, drop and share files with your colleagues directly within Slack. It’s also compatible with services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box.
To round things off, Slack even has a free version, although unsurprisingly it has limitations (in terms of the number of messages stored, overall storage space, and so forth).
Wrike
Wrike is a scalable desktop and iOS/Android mobile team collaboration platform designed to streamline interdepartmental communication, improve employee productivity, and clarify team member tasks and responsibilities.
Its free plan for up to 5 users includes basic task creation, real-time progress updates and activity streams, board and spreadsheet views, and customizable open-source templates/dashboards.
Users can drag boards to reorder specific tasks according to timelines or priority, and the activity streams are designed to mimic social media feeds for ease of use. Users can create specific activity stream filters to avoid having to comb through irrelevant information to find notes/updates on projects they have been assigned.
While Wrike integrates with Google Hangouts, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom, as of this writing, it does not have a native video calling feature or chat messenger tool (though users can leave comments and tag co-workers on Wrike boards.) In order to make a video call, share screens with others, or use chat messenger features, users will need to connect their preferred tool to Wrike.
Wrike also offers several paid add-on features like Wrike Integrate and Wrike Resource.
The free version of Wrike also includes:
- Organize activity into tasks, folders, or projects
- Task, folder, and project commenting/user tagging
- File sharing and up to 2GB of file storage
- Real-time Live Editor
- Mass Actions for tasks (bulk tasks status updates)
- Task filters according to status, assignee, deadline
- Table (spreadsheet) view
- Cloud storage integrations
- User inbox for notifications
- Google Drive, Outlook, Office 365, Dropbox integrations
Best For Wrike is best for startups/micro-businesses that have a large amount of smaller daily tasks that don’t generally require a high amount of collaboration, but that is dependent on the task status of other team members’ projects. Popular use cases include product development, event planning, marketing departments, and IT teams.
Flock
Flock is a team messaging and cross-collaboration platform with a free version providing one-to-one video calls, chat communication channels, and task management capabilities.
Note that, though its interface is similar to Slack’s, Flock’s free version allows for public chat message channels only.
One of the best features of Flock is that it displays all of the new messages a user has been tagged in when they return to Flock after stepping away. This eliminates the need for users to dig through old messages to find important information.
Recently, Flock has also added the Voice Notes feature, where mobile users can send recorded audio messages to each other.
Task management capabilities include to-do lists with user tagging and task assignment, shared to-dos with automatic notifications, reminder setting, due dates, and task prioritization.
Though Flock’s free plan does include a video calling feature, users are limited to one-on-one conversations for a maximum of 20 minutes. Additionally, screen sharing is only available with a paid Flock plan, and it makes it difficult for users to find a screen sharing app that integrates with for free.
That being said, Flock still integrates with Jira, GitHub, ToDoist, Asana, Trello, and Zapier among others. It also allows you to build your own custom apps and integrate them with your Flock dashboard.
Flock’s free plan also includes:
- Up to 10 public channels
- Custom poling
- Channel muting
- Add tasks to integrated calendars
- 1 auto-join channel
- Announcement channel
- Unlimited third-party integrations
- File sharing and 5 GB of storage
- Note-taking app
- Chat pinning
- Unlimited 1-1 voice and video calls
- Team Admin
- Unlimited group messages
- Up to 10,000 searchable messages
Best For: Flock is best for SMBs that use many third-party communication and collaboration platforms, as well as businesses that need to integrate task management capabilities within their chat messaging platform. It’s also a good fit for mobile-first users.
Podio
A mobile-friendly collaboration tool
Podio describes itself as a flexible and customizable online platform for work and communication among teams. In other words, it gives you a way to organize large stacks of work and to delegate tasks between employees.
Just like many of the other business collaboration apps out there, Podio provides you with the tools to share files, view the status of ongoing projects and get feedback on the things you’re currently working on. These functionalities are combined into an easy-to-use interface.
Podio is also equipped with quality mobile apps for when you’re out and about and need to use your smartphone or tablet, and it has an impressive amount of integration with third-party services and apps including Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, and Zendesk.
Trello
If you have ever looked into project management software and online collaboration tools, then no doubt you’ve come across Trello. Available on the web and with mobile apps, it lets you easily organize projects and work on them with colleagues.
The platform allows you to work with boards or lists, which can be organized by teams and different tasks. And within these, you can set up to-do lists and delegate amongst colleagues. There’s also the option to assign comments to cards – a quick way to give feedback to others.
Furthermore, Trello boasts a number of integrations with apps such as Evernote, GitHub, Google Drive, and Slack. You can download the app for free, but there are premium options available that give access to more features.
The Premium pricing tier unlocks a number of additional administrative features for better organization. There’s also an Enterprise edition which is priced according to the number of users required and provides some additional organizational management features.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a business communication and collaboration platform that’s a part of the Microsoft 365 suite.
Users can meet via video, chat and share files via instant messaging, communicate via audio calls, and co-author and store files within the Microsoft 365 workspace (PowerPoint, Excel, Word, etc.) Video meetings can host up to 100 participants for a maximum of 60 minutes. Screen sharing, meeting scheduling, and unlimited chat messaging are also available.
If we had to choose the best option for free team collaboration tools, Microsoft Teams would likely be the winner for companies prioritizing video and audio calls.
However, Teams falls short in providing basic task management features. While the other options on this list include at least some native task management tools, only the paid versions of Teams provide project management features.
Just as team leaders must integrate some of the collaboration tools discussed here with video conferencing software in order to share screens and virtually meet face-to-face, Microsoft Teams requires app integration or payment to access project management tool features.
The free version of Microsoft Teams includes:
- Audio calls
- Blurred background
- Custom backgrounds
- Chat messenger
- Unlimited users
- Unlimited and searchable group chat history
- File sharing (2 GB maximum per user, 10 GB per team)
- Over 250 app integrations
- File notation/editing
Best For: Microsoft Teams is best for companies that primarily communicate via video communication, and therefore need to be able to share screens, access in-video chat messaging, and share/edit files within video calls. Additionally, it’s ideal for teams already working within the Microsoft 365 universe.
Airtable
Airtable is an online platform that lets users build, customize, and share their own databases.
It’s best known for its spreadsheet (Grid) view. Though each entry may look like a simple line on an Excel spreadsheet, these lines are incredibly interactive. Users can create tasks, use a drag-and-drop tool to reorder tasks, upload relevant data, set deadlines, outline main points of contact, share notes, and upload photos/documents to each line.
Relevant grids/tables can be collected into an Airtable Base. For example, a customer satisfaction Base could be made up of grids like existing support tickets, current issues, support agent conversation history, or individual clients.
If the Grid view isn’t preferable, easily shift between multiple views at any time, including Kanban, Gantt, Gallery, and Form views.
Airtable also offers extensive automation capabilities, lets users share and pull data from other grids, and share grids between teams.
The Airtable free plan includes unlimited bases with up to 1,200 records per base, and 2GB of storage per space.
Additional free plan features include:
- 100 automated runs/month
- 2-week run history
- Over 50 pre-built Airtable apps
- 1 manual table sync/base
- iOS and Android mobile apps
- Field types including checkboxes, dropdowns, attachments, and more
Best For: Airtable is best for teams that need highly customizable apps for data organizing, sharing, and task management. Teams with at least some coding experience or access to developers/IT departments will get the most out of Airtable.
Conclusion:
Online collaboration tools are becoming a big thing in today’s world. Entrepreneurs, Freelancers and ordinary everyday people are using collaboration software to work faster, better and more efficiently online.