12 best tools to shift towards "home office"

When moving business to a remote form of work, managers face difficulties: communication with employees, work organization and personnel management, fast information transfer, joint analysis of reports, etc. A selection of tools for remote work will allow you to eliminate questions and competently build work processes in the shortest possible time.

How to choose a set of tools?

  1. Define a range of tasks.
  2. Determine the necessary tasks based on the formulated tasks.
  3. Install the selected application, test it, connect corporate access, set up chat rooms, etc.
  4. Provide employees with up-to-date information on installation and operation standards and start working.

Especially for you, we have collected relevant tools for the main tasks that business meets when moving to remote work.

1. Communication within the team

A practical application that is present in many devices today. It allows both creating group chats and running a channel with news\tasks for simultaneous notification of employees.

Advantages:

  • Free of charge and without advertising;
  • Possibility of text, audio and video messages, individual audio calls;
  • Enables you to create chats and combine them into folders;
  • Data stored in the cloud, no limits on the number of chats and size of documents;
  • Well protected from hacking, it is possible to create secret encrypted chats.

The disadvantages include the lack of video conferencing support.

 

 

Convenient service for a company that has many departments, but not everyone needs to communicate with each other. Slack is a set of chat rooms for group and personal correspondence with the ability to comment, "tag" colleagues, exchange documents, and video calls.

Advantages:

  • Organization of channels by themes;
  • Fast integration with Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Hangouts, Trello, DropBox, etc.;
  • Video conference;
  • High speed of information transfer;
  • Ability to pin certain items;
  • Task creation and tracking.

It is possible to involve clients in the service application by creating a certain channel for them (for 1 client - 1 chat). Thus, the customer's question will be answered in the shortest possible time by one or several specialists engaged in solving this task (in a convenient format: text message, audio, or video format).

There are a free plan and service packages at $8 and $15 per month.

 

A free application for easy planning and conducting video calls. Employees will receive invitations to a video conference via email with the date and time of the conference.

Advantages:

  • Free;
  • Group chats for up to 150 participants and up to 250 people until July 1, 2020;
  • Setting the statuses of users;
  • It is possible to send short text messages;
  • The service displays until which message each of the chat participants has read the correspondence.

 

Zoom is designed for video conferences and online meetings. Participants have a chat room, can share a screen and exchange documents. It is also possible to save a received call via Zoom.

Advantages:

  • Stable connection;
  • Low memory requirements for the device;
  • Screen Sharing function and whiteboard;- Organizer's ability to turn participants' microphones on and off;
  • Saving the video of the call;
  • Free IP-telephony functions in more than 55 countries.

The duration of the free video conference is up to 40 minutes, then it is charged.

 

In Asana you can form tasks, have chats, insert files from Google Drive, Dropbox. The built-in calendar and project bar will not miss any deadlines.

Advantages:

  • - Convenient dashboard with tasks;
  • - Separate Homepage and Team page;
  • - Setting up accessibility for other participants - to the whole page or individual files;
  • - Option "Advanced Search report" for paid accounts;
  • - Download files from Google Drive and Dropbox;
  • - Custom fields and time tracking;
  • - Attach tags to tasks. 

Asana - free service, paid accounts for corporate clients cost $11 and $25 per month.

 

Glip - a service for teamwork with convenient chat rooms, the ability to set tasks and exchange documents.

Advantages:

  • Video chat;
  • Possibility of simultaneous access to documentation by several employees;
  • Integration with Google Drive, Dropbox, Outlook;
  • Mail attachments, push notifications to e-mail;
  • Team calendar;
  • Unlimited access to the storage;
  • The unlimited number of employees.

To work, you can choose as a free version, or agree to a billing plan (from $ 5).

 

Jira helps with planning, distribution of tasks among employees, working with documents. You can fully customize the system to your needs: filters, Workflow, forms, states. It is a leader in bug tracking and is perfect for software developers.

Advantages:

  • Scrum boards, Kanban boards;
  • Customizable filters;
  • API and over 100 plugins;
  • A clear system of task definition and execution;
  • Report generation.

The free version is suitable for companies up to 10 people, the billing plan is from $ 7.

 

Serene is a free tool to increase staff productivity. The main purpose of the tool is the orientation of the employee on the performance of a single set task. It is implemented by blocking unnecessary web resources, applications, setting the "Do not disturb" work mode.

Advantages:

  • Excellent planner;
  • Allocation of work time by tasks in real-time;
  • Blocking of distractions;
  • "To-do list" and "Timer" features allow management to track staff performance and identify bad faith.

The trial version is only available for 2 weeks (counting down from the registration date), after which the usage fee will be $4 per month.

 

Trello allows you to create boards with cards. Each card is a task where there is a chat, you can attach links and documents, put tags, and set deadlines.

Advantages:

  • Easy overview of tasks;
  • Automatic deadline control;
  • Email notifications;
  • Unlimited number of personal boards and cards;
  • History of actions of a team or one person;
  • Intuitive interface.

The free plan is enough for a standard company, but there is also an extended business version from $9.99 per month.

3. Storage and exchange of documents

You can exchange files in services, messengers, and applications considered earlier. However, the storage must be the same for all of them.

 Advantages:

  • Different document formats;
  • Storage and possibility to restore missing documents (changes to be made - not later than 30 days);
  • Suitable for devices with different operating systems;
  • You can make edits directly in the storage, under the supervision of several users.

15 GB is free of charge, if you need to increase the cloud space you will have to pay an extra 1.99 $ per month for every 100 GB.

Advantages:

  • Uninterrupted transfer of any files;
  • Generation of external access links;
  • Storage of posted information;
  • Convenient teamwork (you can create tasks, edit documents, etc.).

Advantages:

  • Reliable storage;
  • 50 GB available upon registration;
  • Fast information transfer;
  • Through encryption, materials are protected from hackers;
  • Ability to manage users;
  • Advanced functionality: chat, video/audio format communication, data transfer, etc.
  • Creation of an access key for links.

As you can see, there are many handy tools for remote work. They help to automate routine activities, share files, organize tasks, and monitor their implementation. You may be able to hold some of them even if you leave the "home office" mode.

Ready to start?