Today, online collaboration tools are used in almost all type of organizations for working in virtual teams. These tools are helpful in the sense that they allow different users in different locations to collaborate with each other in real time. This report highlights some of the issues faced by the current users of online collaboration. These issues include lack of knowledge about trouble shooting, limited knowledge on how these tools can be used effectively, remote support issues, project management issues among others.
Online collaboration tools represent a powerful resource for today’s businesses. These tools hold the key to successful, long-term collaborations between virtually any individuals or locations. However, the right resources must be in place for a successful collaboration. Below are some of the checks you should run as you plan your project to ensure that online collaboration can work best for your business:
Why collaborate?
If you want your business to get the most out of collaboration tools, consider the reasons why you want to introduce collaboration in the first place. There are many benefits that come along with collaboration when successfully pulled-off, including the following:
- Saved time – Time is of the essence in any industry, and the more you can save, the better. When employees collaborate with each other, they’re saving your organization time by achieving the end goal in a much quicker fashion. Time is money, after all, and the more you can save by embracing collaboration tools, the better.
- Strengthened team relationships – In many ways, your team is like a family unit. Building effective working relationships between members, then, is important. Collaboration tools are an excellent way for team members to become more comfortable with the concept of working together to reach a common goal. In this way, it serves a dual purpose that can benefit your business.
- Improved project management – Managing a project or team can be more difficult a process than many people give it credit for. Collaboration tools are a great way to ensure you’re getting the most out of your team, as they improve communication and keep easily avoidable mistakes at bay. When people work together, the chances that things will fall through the cracks dissipate immensely.
- Better organization – It’s easy for things to go missing when you’re in the middle of a project, which can result in headaches and wasted time. Better organization is something that every company should strive for, even if things are already going well. In many cases, collaboration tools are the best medicine when you’re trying to improve organization.
Project Management: ProofHub
Project management is a wide topic that includes many things and is an important part of eLearning. You will need to know whether you have distributed the assignments equally among members, how every member is working on assignments and will the project deadline be reached. For all your little details, ProofHub – a cloud based project management software will help you to improve communication and collaboration in learning projects.
What I like:
- You can communicate through group chat.
- Raise issues and these get resolved easily.
- Sharing of files, documents and information becomes simple.
- Notes functionality will help group members to write content together.
- Sharing of ideas becomes very easy.
- It also lets you connect with your projects on the go from their mobile.
- Great calendar view lets you see everything you need.
- Kanban view turns tasks into boards that are also easy to see at a glance.
Create And Edit Documents: Google Docs
Google Docs has some powerful features for eLearners projects. Google Docs can be used by online learners to collaborate on team projects! You can bring your documents to life with smart editing and styling tools.
What I like:
- Yes, it’s free.
- Save documents on the cloud.
- Simplifies document storage for teams.
- Amazing templates are available for free.
- Various people can even work on the same document at the same time.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Marketing teams can also use these tools to support their cross-departmental tasks across the organization. With the ability to easily send and share documents through cloud-based software, marketers can streamline the distribution of their content and collateral with sales and service teams. Files can be uploaded, organized, and shared in just a few clicks, with numerous users able to collaborate within these documents at the same time. Certain tools also allow users to adjust permission settings to “view only” or “enable editing” on files and folders as needed, in order to preserve the integrity of finalized documents.
Marketing and sales teams that spend much of their time using Salesforce software might also choose Quip as a virtual collaboration tool. Similar to Google Docs, Quip provides a cloud-based workspace for team members to collaborate on shared documents in real-time, with the added bonus of being able to integrate with Salesforce CRM. When these systems are connected, marketing and sales users can cross-functionally collaborate within Quip to edit documents and add comments. Sales team members can even create standardized templates and attach files to Salesforce records while staying within Salesforce CRM, where they have access to Quip file types and features. By removing the need to toggle between programs to find and access information, virtual collaboration tools can foster communication among colleagues and across teams.
External Notifications
Marketing technology stacks usually contain numerous platforms that serve different purposes, each with their own list of tasks and to-dos. Tracking comments and checking due dates for tasks across software can become a job in and of itself, wasting valuable time that could be better spent elsewhere. External notifications can solve this problem by alerting users of recent modifications made to tasks. These notifications are triggered by actions taken within the platform, so that users can become aware of changes being made or steps being completed without having to log into the platform. These notifications could include everything from newly-entered comments and status changes to requests for approval, and even reminders for upcoming deadlines or overdue tasks. Platforms with this feature tend to give users some control over their personal notification settings, with the ability to select the alerts that they would like to receive and those that they would prefer to turn off.
While virtual software programs typically send these notifications via email, some even offer the option to post updates and alerts in Slack, or other inter-company communication software. Team members who can utilize these tools to keep their attention on the project at-hand, can remain focused and productive without the distraction of email inboxes or the need to open up new browser windows.
Security Features
While focused on enabling team collaboration and communication with online technology, we cannot forget the importance of data protection and security. Companies should be taking measures to ensure that their remote teams are properly equipped with the tools needed to preserve confidential information, secure devices, protect customer data, and abide by security regulations. While some free versions of virtual collaboration tools may offer less protection than enterprise models, all forms of software should require logins and passwords to protect the data and information shared on the platform.
More advanced software may even offer multi-factor authentication (MFA) to verify the user, in order to prevent password thefts and other forms of security breaches. MFA is often seen as two-step verification and typically requires users to provide a password and/or PIN number along with another form of user identification when setting up their account. This additional identification step could ask the user to answer a set of user-specific question prompts or even provide a sample of their digital fingerprint sample. Whatever form these identification steps take, they are intended to confirm the user’s identity whenever they login as an extra authentication step beyond the standard password.
Intuitive Interface
Even if you have vetted a product whose feature set checks all of the above boxes, it can still be deemed worthless if it is not user-friendly for your team members. While some marketing teams are already familiar with the more technical UI of project management software commonly used by IT teams, others may be more comfortable with platforms that enhance task flow visualization. Trello, for example, provides high-level visibility into campaign workflows, in which users can collaborate within a project “board” and create a “card” for every task that moves across the board, with drag-and-drop functionality, towards completion. Basecamp also provides a unique take on project management visualization that might appeal to marketers who enjoy the thrill of checking off items on a to-do list. The checklist-inspired design of this platform lets users manage, prioritize, and cross out tasks as they are completed.
Most virtual collaboration platforms–especially those geared towards marketing teams–are easy to use right out-of-the-box and some even offer additional bonus features that can enhance and personalize the user experience of the tool. Certain platforms, such as Wrike, give users the option to customize their own digital dashboards, so that prioritized datasets are readily available as soon as they log into the site. By displaying and arranging items on their personal dashboards, each user can display data according to their individual preference and bring important tasks and useful information to the forefront, so that they are kept top-of-mind.
Conclusion
This online collaboration system is a library of resources to help you successfully use today’s popular content management systems, blogs, wikis, discussion forums, and social networking systems. The training center contains practical information for everything from installation and configuration to managing the site workflow, adding content, and conducting effective online discussions.