Tools To Help You Work Remotely From Home — Abaxsoft Resource Center

Years ago, working remotely was not so much common. Presently, whether by choice or necessity, businesses all around the world are quickly adopting flexible remote work policies for their employees.

Sometimes, remote work may be the need of the hour. For example, right now the world is affected so much by Coronavirus. Many countries are in lockdown state. Companies are also concerned with the safety of their employees. So, most of the companies are allowing their employees to work from home.

In this article, we will discuss the various tools that will be helpful for the employees who are working remotely. There are different categories of these tools. We will discuss each of them. Let us proceed.

Project Management Tools

Many teams handle everything via mails which may be dangerous sometimes. Project management tools solve the problem of virtual teams to organize documents and tasks.

Basecamp

Basecamp is a popular tool among teams, managers, freelancers and agencies. It is very popular due to its simplicity and eases to use. Basecamp is a software solution that helps you manage projects and communicate with clients in a meaningful way.

It offers a variety of tools and features for sharing ideas, organizing conversations. This tool helps to keep everyone on the same page throughout the project.

It offers unlimited projects and unlimited users at a flat price of $99/month. It also offers a free account for up to 3 projects and 20 users which pretty awesome to start with. Check out more about Basecamp pricing here

ProofHub

It is an online project management software. During a project, team members can have seamless interactions with fellow teammates and clients.

ProofHub tool has many features like online proofing, discussions, chat to share feedback etc. It is all in one remote project management software that deserves to be part of every project team.

Some of the important features of this tool are:

• Project reporting and task management
• Discussions, chat and collaborative proofing
• File management, time tracking, Email integration, API etc.

ProofHub pricing starts at $50 per month. ProofHub also offers a free trial. Check out more about ProofHub pricing here

Productivity and reporting

These tools help to boost your team’s productivity. It also helps you to track the progress of everyone.

Avoma

Avoma is an intelligent assistant. For sales and success teams, it offers AI summarized notes, searchable transcripts, and auto-sync to your CRM.

Conversational intelligence features like the speaker and topic identification, custom keyword trends etc help to surface critical information for managers.

Some of the useful features of Avoma include:

• AI meeting assistant
• Conversation intelligence
• Deal collaboration

Avoma offers fair, flexible and affording pricing. It also offers 21 days free trial with all features. Moreover, no credit card required to get started. Avoma has launched Lite plan in which you need to pay $20 per month. Check out more about Avoma pricing here

Klaus

Many managers have concerns about the performance of their agents. This tool helps support managers to digitally audit and rate their team’s interactions with customers across the channels.

When it is integrated with Aircall, you can easily find and review calls, leave constructive feedback for agents etc from a single interface.

Key features of Klaus are:

• Filtered views
• Trend analysis
• Activity tracking and reporting
• Rating management

The pricing starts from $13 per month, per user. There is a Free Trial facility as well. Check out more about Klaus pricing here

Cloud storage and collaboration

Storing data and important files is an important aspect of every work. Cloud storage is a perfect tool for remote cloud storage and collaboration. It is also suitable for the documents and multimedia files that are too large to send.

Google drive

Every one of us is aware of Google drive. This tool is a popular platform for cloud storage. It keeps all your files in one source and centralized location.

The remote workers can store and share documents, spreadsheets, presentations etc. individuals can view and update those documents from anywhere.

By default, Google Drive gives you 15GB free storage space. You can update it anytime with a suitable plan. Check about more about Google drive pricing here

Dropbox

Dropbox is the favourite choice of many design and development teams. It allows remote workers to synchronize, share and collaborate on documents.

Dropbox has an API that makes it useful for remote collaborators. It also allows for sharing big files like photoshop, presentation, sketch with anyone.

Here are some of the useful features of Dropbox:

For businesses, Dropbox offers two types of plans: Standard and advanced. For Standard plan, you need to pay $15 per user per month. To know about the pricing plans of Dropbox click here

Meetings and video chat

During remote work, you need to take meetings with your team. There are many tools available that give you the facility of video chats.

Google hangouts

This is one of the popular tools for video meetings. With Google Hangouts, you can place a one to one video call or can also include a maximum of ten participants in the video call based on your need.

Some of the important features of Google Hangouts are:

This software is available for free for receiving and making calls and video conferencing.

join.me

It is an excellent app for screen sharing and team calls. This tool doesn’t freeze up as often as other tools do. So, it is a great choice for quick meetings. Moreover, it offers a good quality of service.

Following are some of the main features of join.me:

• Join conference calls
• Live text chat tool
• Share screens and screen control
• Multiple screen sharing

join.me comes in three different plans: Lite, Pro and Business. For Lite, you need to pay $10 per month. It supports 5 participants per meeting. Check out more about joining.me pricing plans here

Time management tool

If you are working with a team, time management becomes an important factor. In such cases, remote time management tools play an important role.

Hub staff

This tool will make you more productive and will make your time work for you. With its help, you can easily track where employees are spending their time on what tasks they are working currently.

Important features of Hub staff are:

Hub staff offers free access up to one user. You can subscribe to any plan according to your need. To know about pricing details of Hub staff, click here

Teamwork

You need to track every hour to increase the productivity of your employees. With the help of this tool, you can invoice all tracked time and expenses.

Moreover, you can create custom time reports of time logged on the project. You can export your report and time log entities as Excel, PDF or CSV.

Teamwork helps to manage:

• Task lists
• Time tracking
• File uploads and messages

Teamwork offers you the free trial of 30 days. After which, you can subscribe to any plan. The plans come under the three categories: Pro, Premium and Enterprise. Click here to know about the pricing details of Teamwork

Note-taking tool

The quality matters a lot instead of quantity. We all know this fact. Note-taking tools make your task easier and well planned.

Evernote

It is a great tool for teammates working remotely. It helps you to keep all your notes organized, synchronize it automatically across all your devices.

This application serves as a notetaker, PDA, to-do list and pocket notebook. For arranging things properly, this tool is a must for remote workers.

Some of the exciting features of Evernote are:

Evernote facilitates you to start free of cost. Once you understand its functionality, you can go for the paid plans. It comes in two forms: Evernote Premium and Evernote Business. To know about the pricing details, click here

Communication is the key

The tools listed above have excellent features. You can get started with these tools anytime. In remote work, you become more accountable and it gives you the feeling of freedom. But, it makes day to day communication harder.

Whenever you are working remotely, keep in the mind that all your team members should be on the same page. Time to time, communicate with them and know their progress or status. These tools are for remote workers’ assistance, they cannot replace the actual communication.

If you are leading a project or you are the owner of a company, it becomes important for you to manage the remote work properly.

Conclusion

I hope these tools will be beneficial for you.

Are you also a remote worker?

Are you planning your employees to work remotely?

If yes, then you can take help of these tools. The list of such tools does not end up here. There are many other tools as well.

If you have an idea of such tools, share with us in the comment section.

Originally published at http://www.abaxsoft.com on April 27, 2020.