10 Tools for Remote Teams to Stay Connected, Organized, and Productive
Are you a part of a distributed team with members who live everywhere from California to Mumbai? If yes, you might know how hard it is to keep everyone on the same page, manage time across multiple timezones, and collaborate with each other.
Luckily, we are born in the 21st century where there is a tool for everything from managing work to enabling seamless communication to remain sane at work.
Here are our best picks, let’s take a look at them:
One tool for different needs
ProofHub
If you’re looking for a single remote tool that eliminates the need to invest in too many tools, ProofHub is the right pick for you. It brings your remote teams at a single place where you can have seamless interactions with fellow team members.
It has plenty of features such as online proofing, discussions, chat, @mentions, announcements helping you stay connected and up-to-date. Other features include Gantt charts, Kanban boards, interactive custom reports enabling you to manage work better and deliver work successfully.
ProofHub is secure and customer-oriented. Plus, it offers various third-party integrations enhancing its capabilities as a remote project management tool.
Online communication and collaboration
Slack
Communication plays an important role while managing remote teams as the outcome depends on what’s communicated to them. Slack is a popular online collaboration tool used by various in-house and remote team members.
It can be used to interact with fellow team members either publicly or in private with its instant messaging features. Slack is like a digital space helping people share ideas, exchange comments, share feedback in real-time. You can integrate Skype, Zoom, Mailchimp among others.
Zoom
One of the biggest peeves of remote workers is the inability to see each other in real. This is where a video conferencing tool comes to your rescue. Zoom is a popular video calling application where you can make HD video calls, high-quality audio calls, simultaneous screen sharing, dual stream for dual screen, whiteboarding and other advanced features.
It is highly secure with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption and role-based access controls and admin feature controls.
UberConference
UberConference claims to provide everything you need for effective meetings, minus all the stuff you don’t need. Remote teams can share screen by letting participants view screen and collaborate live on documents.
The good news is that in UberConference anyone can join instantly without any PINs or downloads. Plus, you can launch meetings from anywhere in the world as you can access it from any device. It makes it simple for you to share notes, documents, and files even during your conference call.
Appear.in
Appear.in is a video meeting tool to bring your clients together for virtual meetings. It allows you to have video conversations with up to 4 people at once in the free version. You can also share screens with remote team members to discuss important stuff.
You just have to create a room link and share it with others via email, chat, or Slack. Anyone with the link can easily join the conversation and collaborate.
Organizational tools
Google Drive
With Google Drive, you can store files, save email attachments, and back up photos and videos at a place accessible to all remote team members. It lets you work and collaborate with Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms and share with each other.
Just snap a photo of documents like receipts, letters, and statements — and Drive will store them instantly as PDFs. You can also make files available offline to access anytime.
Evernote
While working from geographically dispersed locations, it is possible that you miss out on an important task for whatever reason. Having a note-taking application such as Evernote can help you remember and note down all the important stuff at one place.
You can capture and prioritize ideas, projects, and checklist, so nothing falls through the cracks. Apart from keeping notes handy, it can help remote workers to manage everything from big-hairy project goals to personal tasks and never lose sight of your tasks and deadlines.
Productivity tools
1Password
Remote workers have to use different tools for different purposes. Every tool comes with a username and password. It can be a real pain to memorize every username and password taking into an account the number of tools we use daily. This is where 1Password comes into the picture.
It is a password manager, secure wallet, and digital vault combined into one. It remembers all your passwords and keeps the confidential information secure and safe.
Time Doctor
Looking for a tool to manage time effectively and be more productive? Time Doctor is an employee time tracking software that comes handy with customizable features as needed for each employee. It can be used to track time and see how the time is being spent on each and every task.
Get detailed reports, timesheets, automated screenshots, process payroll and billing with it. It integrates with all leading project management tools.
World Time Buddy
When your team is located at different locations, it is difficult to schedule meetings that fit into everyone’s timetable. World Time Buddy (WTB) is a world clock, time zone converter, and an effective online meeting scheduler.
You just have to add the locations of your remote team members, drag and drop the slider to find a suitable time for a meeting. It is one of the best online productivity tools for those are always travelling from one timezone to another.
What Are Your Must-Have Tools?
I am hopeful that will you find the above-mentioned tools helpful to stay productive and organised. I’d love to hear more about what tools you use to stay connected with your remote teams. Share your favourite in the comments.
Author Bio:
Sandeep Kashyap is the Founder and CEO of ProofHub — a leading project management and collaboration software. He’s one person always on a lookout for innovative ideas about filling the communication gap between groups, teams, and organizations. You’ll find him saying, “Let’s go!” instead of “Go!” many times a day. That’s what makes him write about leadership in a way people are inspired to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more.
