Business Collaboration Tools can help you stay focused and reduce disruptions when working with your team. The issue is that there are too many apps which makes it difficult to figure out what is best for your business situation.
6 Types of Online Collaboration Tools To Keep Employees Productive
1.Communication Tools
Team communication used to be one of the biggest challenges for a remote workforce, back when emails and conference phone calls were the norm. But today, there are a lot of great platforms to make communication a lot easier even while working remotely.
Whether you need to schedule a meeting or have a private chat with a team member, these tools help you stay connected and foster team building.
1. Slack
Slack is the most common, well-crafted, and flexible messaging communication tool used by remote teams. Its private or open chat channels, reminder settings, searchable archives, and numerous Slackbots enhance instant communication within a team.
Slack provides voice and video calls along with screen sharing and it also has a search feature to make it easier for you to search for any information.
Pricing: Free to use with storage limitation, Basic plan starts at $6.67 user/month.
2. Chanty
Chanty is a team chat and a single notification center that enables you to stay up to date with everything important. Its powerful integrations save time by delivering notifications from third-party apps. Also, the built-in task manager allows creating new tasks or turning any message into a task.
Chanty has a clean and intuitive interface that lets your team chat in public or private conversations, search for any information, forward/pin important messages, and share files. It also provides communication via high-quality audio and video calls.
Pricing: Starts at $3 per user/month.
3. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams enables communication by chat messages in private or group conversations, voice calls and video meetings, pictures, and documents. It provides full integration across Office 365 apps, simple cloud storage per user, and access to all Microsoft Office tools in one place.
Pricing: Free to try with limited features, Paid plans start at $5 user/month.
4. Skype
Skype is undoubtedly the most popular communication tool which ensures staying in touch with people all over the world for free via voice calls, video calls, text messages, and screen sharing. It also allows worldwide mobiles and landline calling even if a person doesn’t have a Skype account.
The most exciting feature of Skype is that it allows audio and video calls between multiple devices which means, one person could be on a computer and another could be on their mobile device.
Pricing: Free up to 25 users, Paid plans $2 per user/month.
5. Zoom
Whether you need to connect with a massive number of colleagues through video conferences or run a webinar with many guests, Zoom is the best option for you. Zoom includes features like file collaboration, group messaging, and whiteboarding to assist you while working with your team efficiently.
Its most advanced feature is selective screen sharing where some participants can see the presenter’s screen and some can’t.
Pricing: Free up to 100 participants with a 40-minute time limit, Paid plans start at $14.99 per month/host.
5. Blue Jeans
BlueJeans provides a cloud-based video conferencing service connecting participants across different devices and conferencing platforms. It enables you to schedule, join and host one-touch meetings from anywhere and on any device. It drives meeting productivity by integrating with the scheduling, messaging, and productivity tools. It also leverages AI and voice recognition to make your meetings intelligent.
Pricing: Starts at $12.49 per host/month.
5. WebEx
WebEx represents a group of products -WebEx Meetings and Cisco Spark, each of which has its own features, but is mainly focused on video communication. Admins establish the rules in WebEx like restricting a meeting at any time, passing the mouse control, letting attendees download or comment on a shared file. WebEx is best for conducting webinars and training sessions. Pricing: Starts at $13.50 per month/ host.
5. GoToMeeting
GTM provides HD-quality videos perfect for conducting webinars and hosting conferences. Drawing tools help to make annotations while sharing the screen. With GTM, you can also schedule a new or recurring meeting in advance. It includes other features like the ability to hand over your computer’s control to another member and one-click recording to make a meeting more productive.
Pricing: Starts at $19 user/month.
2.Documentation Tools
Documentation tools are online collaboration tools that allow remote teams to edit documents collaboratively in real-time and share them with all team members.
1. Google Docs
Google Docs is the most famous documentation tool that allows multiple people to edit the same doc simultaneously, leave comments, or see changes made by every participant. It enables all participants to have a central place for storing and sharing information.
Google Docs is very convenient since it is cloud-based hence no installations are required and all changes made on documents are automatically saved to Drive so you don’t lose them.
Pricing: Free for the average user and $5/user for the business version.
2. Etherpad
Etherpad is a customizable open-source online editor that enables collaborative editing in real-time. It is a simple, free to download editor that helps many people work on the same document simultaneously.
3. Quip
Quip is a suitable solution for the collaboration on docs, notes, checklists, task lists with real-time messaging. It enables users to build a rich, multimedia, and multi-asset document. With Quip, teams can import and work live on different file types.
Pricing: Starts at $10 per user/month.
4. Xtensio
A collaborative workspace where teams can easily create and share beautiful living documents altogether. What drives over 150,000 people to Xtensio are the strategic and visual templates that get you started. They ask you the right questions and guide you through your process. They unlock what’s encrypted in your brain and help you turn it into a beautiful communication piece.
3.File-Sharing Tools
Remote teams can make use of file-sharing platforms instead of overflowing their team’s email inboxes with attachments. These online collaboration tools are cloud-based that make it easier to upload and share files with your team at a single location which can be accessed through any device.
1. Google Drive
Google Drive is the most popular cloud storage service that provides space for collaboration and keeps files saved at one location. Files stored in Google Drive are easily accessible by every team member via any device. It lets you choose the level of interactivity to assign a participant. Also, the UI is intuitive and easy to use.
Pricing: Free up to 15Gb of storage, $1.99/month for 100Gb storage.
2. Dropbox
Dropbox enables you to store all files together in one place and share them with others to collaborate. It allows syncing your work from any place and any device. When documents are edited, each team member gets the latest version. The version history feature allows you to recover and restore the previous versions of files.
Pricing: Starts at $9.99/month.
3. Microsoft OneDrive
OneDrive makes it easier to share documents across platforms. It allows your team to collaborate with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. The downside comes with editing, proofing, sharing documents with clients outside of Microsoft365, which is where Dropbox may be a better option.
Pricing: Free up to 5 GB storage, Paid plans start at $1.99/month.
4. Hightail
Hightail is a cloud service for sharing large files (up to 10gd). It lets you stream your work process right in the browser so that it can be previewed without downloading. Hightail enables the sharing of images, videos, PDFs, presentations, MP3 files, and receives real-time feedback from clients.
The tool enables the digital signing of files and synchronizing them. It is loaded with collaborative features to enable easy collaboration, eliminating the need to share files via emails. But a drawback of this tool is that shared files tend to expire quickly.
Pricing: Free for a 7-day period, Paid plans start at $12/month
4.Project Management Tools
Project management tools enable teams to plan, coordinate, control, and monitor their projects or daily tasks. These tools help with projects as they grow in complexity.
1. JIRA
JIRA is a powerful agile project management tool mostly used by product, tech, or engineering teams to work in a well-organized controlled manner and stay efficient. It provides useful features like boards with different categories like to do or in progress or done, real-time insights reports, roadmaps to assign work, and manage the activity of all team members. JIRA helps all your team members to plan, track, and release great projects. Pricing: Starts at $10/month for up to 10 users.
2. Asana
Asana helps create and organize tasks, divide the work amongst team members, set deadlines, get an overview of the ongoing work, and monitor progress. It allows you to assign tasks to team members and notify them about important project developments.
It also allows team members to share their end goals and coordinate over milestones with the team. While Asana is a great project collaboration tool, assigning project tasks to only one person has a limitation.
Pricing: Free up to 15 members, $10.99 per user/month.
3. Trello
Trello contains an online board with cards optimized for organizing tasks and creating lists to assign and share with others. With the Kanban board, you can view any project and figure out the responsibilities of every team member to keep track of their work. Each Trello card has a comment section to facilitate team communication.
It also provides reminders and email notifications to never miss a deadline and integrates with platforms like Evernote, Google Drive, GitHub, and Slack for a united team experience.
Pricing: Free up to 10 boards, Starts at $9.99 per user/month.
4. Basecamp
Basecamp is a collaboration tool designed to organize employees, delegate tasks, and monitor progress. It allows you to chat with colleagues, receive feedback, build to-do lists, schedule projects, share files, and create daily/weekly stand-ups. It has a portal for outside clients to manage projects and deliverables with the project team, without altering any plans.
Pricing: Free 30-day trial, Paid plan at $99/month.
5.Time Management Tools
Time management tools help teams manage the hours of the day by planning the time to be spent on each task. Effective time management tools help you to perform your daily tasks within set deadlines.
1. Time Doctor
Time Doctor tracks time and takes screenshots of your team’s computers to ensure that they’re working on their assigned tasks. This increases productivity and helps you figure out the issues faced by an employee while working on a project. It is great to manage the remote and outsourced employees as you can see exactly what they are working on.
The only issue is that some employees might feel uncomfortable working under a watch. So, it is a leader’s responsibility to work with the tool in the best way possible and keep a limited watch whenever necessary.
Pricing: Free 14-day trial, Paid plans start at $7 per user/month.
2. Toggl
Toggl comes with a browser extension that allows you to simply tap a button on your browser instead of repeatedly going back to start and stop the time for your tasks. It generates visual reports for users to see where they’ve been spending most of their time and alter their schedules accordingly. It also provides a snapshot of estimated vs actual time for a project, to help you plan better in the future.
Pricing: Starts at $10 per user/month.
3. Hubstaff
Hubstaff allows you to effectively manage workflows and productivity of remote employees by setting time or cost limits to projects and establishing weekly limits for each team member. Its time tracking capabilities ensure timely payment for the delivered work.
Pricing: Free up to 5 users, Paid plans start at $4.17/month.
6. Knowledge Management Tools
Organizations use knowledge management platforms for sharing information internally and externally. Some examples of knowledge management tools are learning management systems, customer relationship systems, and knowledge bases.
1. Confluence
Confluence organizes teamwork and centralizes all information required to stay up to date. It allows users to create meeting notes, project plans, product requirements, receive feedback, and search for company information. The tool also offers features like ‘Questions’ to vote and ‘Team Calendars’ to schedule projects.
Pricing: Starts at $10/month.
2. Guru
Guru enables easy access to the latest information from any device. It permits users to organize and manage information by filtering it category-wise and getting insights into the knowledge base. It provides a browser extension for integration to third-party apps that permit single-click access to trusted answers. Support teams use this feature to remember product nuances, issues, and saved responses.
Pricing: Starts at $380 for 20 users.
3. ComAround
ComAround Knowledge helps you write, edit, and publish knowledge articles or make how-to videos. It offers machine translation to save time and money, so that content can be shared throughout the support flow effortlessly.
Pricing: Free 30-day trial, Paid plans start at $45/month.
Collaboration in the post-pandemic age
Technology facilitates so much of today’s business proceedings that, when swaths of the American workforce were ordered to shelter in place and work from home, many segments of the population were able to quickly adjust thanks to some key downloads, hardware upgrades, and powerful internal communication tools at their disposal.
Presented in no particular order, these 14 programs have proven to be useful in keeping teams operating, no matter where each remote employee is. While they don’t necessarily replace the value of colleagues working in close proximity to one another, these tools make it easier for small business teams to stay connected virtually.
- BlueJeans by Verizon
- Windstream Enterprise OfficeSuite UC
- Cisco Webex
- ClickMeeting
- Fuze
- Google Meet
- GoToMeeting
- Join.me
- Microsoft Teams
- Slack
- TeamViewer
- Unified Meeting 5
- Zoho Meeting
- Zoom
Key takeaway: These 14 collaboration and communication tools should be at the front of any small business owner’s mind as they seek a proper solution to get the team to work together.
Top internal communication and collaboration tools
From text-only chat to live video calls, these programs stand out as powerful and affordable solutions for any small business looking to ensure employees and managers can easily keep in touch with one another.
1. BlueJeans by Verizon
Everyone has a preferred way of attending online meetings. BlueJeans, a cloud-based video communications platform, gives attendees the flexibility of joining video conferences using a web browser, desktop app, or mobile phone, all while making meetings more productive with a wide range of collaboration features that are available across platforms. These include the ability to host meetings in conference rooms and town halls, share screens, and record meetings.
BlueJeans makes it easy to combine workflows. For instance, you can schedule meetings with Outlook and Google Calendar and integrate the software with other popular business apps and services. All content is transmitted with AES-GCM 256-bit encryption, and conversations can benefit from BlueJeans’ real-time closed captioning for hearing-impaired users. Users who don’t have video- or audio-capable devices can phone in to join meetings.
Plans for BlueJeans Meetings start at $9.99 per host per month if billed annually. The Pro version, which supports up to 75 meeting participants, starts at $12.49 per host per month if billed annually. [Could your business benefit from video conferencing? If so, check out the video conference services we recommend for small businesses.]
2. Windstream Enterprise OfficeSuite UC
Are your employees always on the go? OfficeSuite UC is a 100% cloud-based UCaaS (unified communications as a service) system that’s fully accessible anytime, anywhere. In addition to audio, web and video conferencing, OfficeSuite offers unlimited nationwide calling, toll-free phone service, and digital faxing. It also has useful mobility features: mobile twinning, which makes all incoming calls ring your desk and mobile phone simultaneously; hotdesking to enable incoming and outgoing calls from any phone; and virtual voicemail, allowing you to receive notifications and messages from any phone, online, or by email.
Built into OfficeSuite UC are integrations with third-party applications like Salesforce, Skype, Google’s G Suite, Slack and Microsoft Teams. UC also features contact center services to help users create queues for calls and chats, as well as live and historical agent activity and the ability to record calls. Contact Windstream Enterprise for pricing information.
3. Cisco Webex
Businesses that rely heavily on meetings need full-featured communications software. Cisco’s Webex offers HD video conferences with collaboration and file-sharing capabilities for all types of meetings, including presentations, sales demos, online training sessions, web-based events, staff meetings and remote tech support.
Webex is fully accessible on mobile devices with the Webex mobile app for iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry. The basic version of Webex is free and supports up to 100 meeting participants, but it’s limited to a single user, and meetings can only last up to 50 minutes. Premium versions start at $14.95 a month and include phone call-ins, file transfers, 5GB of cloud recording storage and live 24/7 support.
Editor’s note: Looking for the right video conferencing solution for your business? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you about your needs.https://app.buyerzone.com/10091/widget/neptune/?pubId=36189&pubtype=3051&widgetColorPaletteName=neptune&widgetHostPage=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessnewsdaily.com%2F6176-communication-tools.html&widgetSessionId=b6c541b8-a1d1-4633-a19e-4bfe7b0a8293-widget1
4. ClickMeeting
For businesses that host lots of webinars, ClickMeeting has dozens of tools to help you set up and run a smooth presentation. You can plan out your webinar beforehand with your branding, slideshows and screen sharing. You can make custom invitations and registration pages to get everyone you need into your webinar room.
During the presentation, you can add polls, use a Q&A chat tool and create calls to action. The webinar can be saved for later viewing as well. ClickMeeting starts at $25 per month if billed annually, with support for up to 25 participants in meetings and up to six hours of recording storage.
5. Fuze
Do you need more flexibility in your meetings? Fuze is packed with capabilities to take online and live meetings to the next level. In addition to offering HD audio and video conferencing for up to 1,000 participants, Fuze lets users present documents, multimedia, animations and other types of rich content.
Participants can access Fuze on any device, whether they are in the same room as the meeting, down the hall or across the country. You can easily schedule meetings directly from Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar. Fuze starts at $15 per user per month, with the option to upgrade to tiers with more features and support for more users.
6. Google Meet
Whether you need to make voice calls or video calls, or simply chat and send multimedia messages, Google Meet is the kind of group collaboration tool that makes all types of communication among employees super easy, regardless of your team members’ locations and devices.
Like other components of the G Suite, Meet features improvements from Google’s previous flagship team communication tool, Hangouts. Through Meet, you can make voice calls straight from your computer (calls to the U.S. and Canada are free), hold video conferences, and even livestream meetings and events. Users who don’t have access to a computer or an internet connection can dial in with a unique meeting phone number.
The Business Starter tier starts at $6 per user per month and includes a custom business email address, 100-participant video meetings, 30GB of cloud storage per user and standard support. Higher service tiers are also available, with upgraded features to support the larger price tags.
7. GoToMeeting
If you need a basic, easy-to-use web conferencing solution, LogMeIn’s GoToMeeting can get you started immediately. You can use its one-click meeting feature to schedule meetings through integrations with Microsoft Office 365, Slack, Google Calendar and Microsoft Teams.
In addition to HD video conferencing, GoToMeeting offers dozens of useful tools to make your meetings more productive and interactive. These include screen sharing, web audio, a dial-in conference line, drawing tools and the ability to record meetings.
GoToMeeting starts at $14 per month per user if billed annually and supports up to 150 participants. If you need more participants and features, check out the Business plan ($19 per user per month if billed annually) for 250 attendees. There’s also the Enterprise plan for up to 3,000 participants, though that will require a custom quote from LogMeIn’s sales department. A free 14-day trial is available. [Want to learn more? Check out our full review of GoToMeeting.]
8. Join.me
This application is unique in that its video chat windows are circles instead of squares. Join.me lets you easily start casual voice chats with anyone in your business, no software required. You can join video meetings and webinars from your web browser. It also has an iOS app, VoIP and toll-free capabilities. It features several integrations, including with scheduling programs such as Outlook and Google Calendar, and other applications such as Salesforce and Slack.
The Lite version starts at $10 per month for five meeting participants. You can upgrade to the Pro version for $20 per month (billed annually) for 250 participants. The company’s Business plan offers more features and a robust cloud storage package.
9. Microsoft Teams
Businesses with Office 365 subscriptions have access to Microsoft’s robust video conferencing and chat tools. Having effectively replaced Skype for Business as the company’s main business communication platform, Microsoft Teams is a quintessential video chat platform full of powerful features like screen and file sharing, shared apps and workflows, and a visual style called Together Mode that makes it look like everyone participating in the meeting is in the same room.
Teams is available for free, allowing hourlong online meetings with up to 300 participants until June 30, 2021. The free version has plenty of features, including collaboration tools and screen sharing, custom backgrounds, unlimited chat messages, real-time collaboration in Microsoft Office, and scheduling tools through Outlook. Microsoft Teams is also included in existing Microsoft 365 subscription plans. [Microsoft Teams is our choice as the best video conferencing service for integration.]
10. Slack
Slack is a multipurpose platform for project management, instant messaging and video conferencing. It allows you to create several channels for different teams and makes it easy to add new members to multiple channels. From here, team members can instant-message each other, share and store files with up to 1TB of storage per member in the Enterprise service tier, and start video calls.
Slack has a free version for an unlimited number of users. The paid versions, starting at $8 per user per month, keep an unlimited searchable history of your messages and let you host video meetings with up to 15 participants. Screen sharing, custom user groups, two-factor authentication settings, and unlimited apps and integrations are all available in the paid versions.
11. TeamViewer
Remote support has come a long way from users relaying their issues over the phone. TeamViewer gives anyone complete access to desktops, applications, and data so users can skip explaining problems and reduce miscommunication.
Available 24/7, this program does not require any installation on your business’s part. In addition to remote support, it provides an online collaboration platform for holding meetings, presentations and training sessions. TeamViewer starts at $49 per month for one licensed user at a time, while a multi-user option is available for $99 per month, and a team-oriented option is available for $199 per month.
12. Unified Meeting 5
Collaboration should be easy. Unified Meeting 5, by conferencing solutions provider West, is an all-in-one audio, video, and web conferencing platform that makes creating and joining meetings a piece of cake. It provides simplified scheduling tools, offers streamlined audio call management, and seamlessly integrates with popular business tools. Attendees join meetings by clicking on a link from a meeting invitation. They can do this on their desktop computer, smartphone, or tablet, no matter where they are located.
Unified Meeting 5 operates on the same network as West’s enterprise customers, giving small business owners access to the same reliable connection without the enterprise price tag. A 10-participant plan costs $25 per month, while a 25-participant plan costs $39. If you need the service on a per-user basis, your business can use Unified Meeting 5 for 17 cents a minute per attendee.
13. Zoho Meeting
There’s more to web conferencing than staff meetings. Zoho Meeting is a comprehensive online meeting solution that lets businesses hold live meetings to share product demonstrations with prospects, provide remote client support and more.
Users simply sign in with their Google, Facebook or Yahoo accounts; via Google Apps; or by entering a meeting session ID from any Windows, Mac or Linux device. You can also embed meetings on webpages, blogs and wikis for easy access. Zoho Meetings starts at $2.50 per host per month if billed annually for 10 participants, with three other pricing plans for more participants and larger price tags.
14. Zoom
Zoom is an enterprise-level, all-in-one collaboration tool with a small business price tag. The recipient of our Technology Bizzy for 2021, Zoom came into its own following the COVID-19 shutdowns that swept the U.S. As a tool, it was primed to meet the occasion with video and web conferencing solutions, as well as cross-platform instant messaging and file-sharing features.
Zoom lets users hold all types of online meetings, such as one-on-one video conferences, town-hall meetings, training, webinars and marketing events. The service can be used on desktops, mobile devices, and your company’s video and conference room systems. A developer platform is available to integrate Zoom features – such as video, voice and screen sharing – with apps your business already uses.
Zoom offers a free, basic plan that allows one-on-one meetings and group meetings for up to 100 participants. Paid, unlimited plans start at $14.99 per month per license and offer admin tools, customization options and additional integrations. [Zoom is Business News Daily’s choice as the best overall video conferencing service.
Conclusion
There are a lot of collaboration tools that companies use. Though they’re useful, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to choose one. So what business collaboration tools should you choose?