A great team and excellent work processes contribute to building a successful business. This is further strengthened by using excellent tech tools that speed up work completion, fosters team building, and increases employee productivity. 

For example, using workplace management software to build a flexible office, event management software to host team events, collaboration tools to boost team communication, and more.

Collaboration tools play a crucial role in creating a productive environment in a workplace. With 63% of companies following a hybrid work model, collaborative tools are a must to ensure excellent project management and seamless communication among team members. It helps team members work together, share information and feedback, solve queries, and make improved project-related decisions.

In this post, we shall learn more about collaborative tools, their benefits, and tips for choosing the best tools for your organization. We will also share our top 20 collaborative tool recommendations for your business.

What Are Collaboration Tools?

Collaboration tools or collaborative software, are intuitive tools designed to maximize and boost the effectiveness of teamwork to complete projects on time and achieve business goals. These tools provide a centralized platform for team members to impart knowledge, share data and files, assign tasks, monitor project status, and more.

With the changing project requirements, it is essential to ensure that your team has updated project information at all times. Collaborative tools guarantee the same by keeping your entire team on the same page with real-time updates and conversations.

That being said, let us have a look at various business challenges team collaboration software can solve.

Top Challenges Collaborative Tools Solve

Collaboration is one of the key aspects that contribute to building high-performing teams. However, most businesses often face team collaboration challenges that hamper work efficiency. Here are a few of them.

• Difficulty in achieving seamless team communication and failing to create a culture of open communication
• Inability to make employees feel welcomed and part of the team
• Lack of clear vision or objectives to achieve business/project goals
• Failure to build a sense of trust and dependency among team members
• Inability to boost employee morale and motivate team members
• Difficulty in managing projects leading to missing deadlines and extended delivery timelines

Utilizing online collaboration tools for your teams is one of the most effective ways to overcome these challenges. Team collaboration software helps you avoid these pitfalls and improve your team’s effectiveness and productivity. 

Now, let us have a look at the benefits of using tools for online collaboration.

3 Benefits of Collaboration Tools for Your Business

Improving team productivity is one of the major benefits of collaboration tools. It is found that online collaboration tools can scale up productivity by 30%. Let us have a look at some of the other benefits this collaboration software offers your organization.

Increased Communication

Online collaboration tools empower hybrid working teams to communicate and collaborate without feeling disconnected. It keeps the flow of ideas, feedback, and conversations going and helps team members reduce friction and resolve issues in no time thereby boosting productivity.

Enhanced Organizational Control

Collaboration software offers an excellent medium to streamline all aspects of the projects, such as managing tasks, communicating with team members, file storage, and more. It brings together the crucial information in one standard place thereby offering teams quick access to this information whenever required. It ensures that no information gets lost amidst the commotion leaving no space for misunderstanding and confusion.

Increased Employee Satisfaction

Collaboration tools simplify work for employees by keeping them updated about their assignments and providing them with resources to manage their workload better. Streamlining tasks boosts productivity and gives employees a sense of satisfaction in their work life.

10 Features Collaboration Tools Must Have

It might be confusing to choose the right collaboration tools for businesses considering the number of tools available in the market today. Hence, we made a list of essential features that you need to consider.

• Project management – To organize all aspects of the project, assign tasks to the desired team members, and monitor the project’s progress in real-time.
• Task management – To manage all crucial details about the task, such as description, deadline, priorities, dependency on other tasks, and more.
• Document management – To maintain a centralized repository of critical project documents and ensure seamless access at all times.
• File sharing – To ensure project-related files can be shared with team members and key stakeholders without any hassles.
• Team messaging – To communicate with the team members about individual tasks, share feedback, ask doubts, and more.
• Video conferencing – To allow dynamic collaboration among the team members – in-office team and remote employees via a video meeting.
• Meeting and calendar – To track the availability of team members and schedule the meetings accordingly. 
• Integration capabilities – To ensure that the software can be connected with other third-party applications for seamless data processing.
• Intuitive interface – To ensure that your team does not face any difficulties while using the software.
• Security – To ensure the software offers flexible permissions, authentication procedures, and security protocols for data security and safety.

5 Types of Collaboration Tools (Examples Included)

Now that we have learned about the essential features the collaboration tools must offer, let us quickly have a look at some of the best types you must invest in. We have also shared a list of collaboration tool examples that will boost your team’s collaboration efforts and productivity.

1. Team Communication Tools

• Slack – Slack is an instant messaging app with excellent chat functions allowing your team members to communicate with each other without any hassles.
  
• Zoom – Zoom is a video conferencing tool that allows you to conduct video meetings, webinars, and more along with screen-sharing, live chats, and other collaborative activities.
  
• Discord – Discord is a chat application that allows you to connect with your team via text, voice, or video.
  
• Facebook Workplace – Facebook Workplace offers an intranet portal that works like an exclusive social media network for your organization.

2. Online Project Management Tools

• Asana – Asana is a project management tool that helps you organize complex projects and tasks to manage them effectively.
  
• Trello – Trello is another project management tool that helps you organize your projects into kanban-style boards for effective management.
  
• MindMeister – MindMeister is a mind map creation tool that is ideal for brainstorming, project planning, note-taking, and more. It allows you to visualize, present, and share your thoughts in the most comprehensible manner.

3. Team Collaboration Tools

• Google Docs – Google Docs is a document management tool that lets you create, format, and share documents online while collaborating with other team members in real time.
• Evernote – Evernote is an intuitive note-taking application that allows you to create and organize your thoughts in the form of digital notes. Store text, pictures, videos, audio clips, and more to remember everything and stay productive at all times.
• Team Viewer – TeamViewer is a remote access solution for gaining access to computers or mobile devices in a screen mirroring manner. Use it to fix computer-related issues, work on files that aren’t locally accessible, guide team members with their tasks, and more.
• Canva – Canva is an online graphic designing tool used to create social media posters, videos, presentations, brochures, and more that allows real-time collaboration like Google Docs.
• Zapier – Zapier is a workflow automation platform that integrates various apps and services you use to transfer data and build seamless workflows.
• InVision – Invision is an online whiteboard platform that supports the design process from brainstorming, designing, collaborating, and testing mockups and prototypes.

4. File Storage and Sharing

• Google Drive – Google Drive is a free cloud-based file storage system that lets you store and access your files online. Upload documents, photos, videos, and other files to access them in just a few clicks.
  
• Dropbox – Dropbox is another popular cloud-based storage solution that lets you upload, store, and share files with your team securely.
  
• WeTransfer – WeTransfer is an amazing file transfer tool that allows you to send large files, photos, and videos to anyone around the world in a few minutes.
  
• LastPass – LastPass is an online password manager that offers amazing features such as password sharing, two-factor authentication, and more thereby making it easy for you to log in to any website or app in just one click. All you need to remember is the LastPass master password and the tool does the rest for you.

5. Meetings

• Google Calendar – Google Calendar is a time-management and meeting-scheduling tool that helps you quickly book meetings, events, and appointments and sends out real-time reminders about your upcoming activities.
  
• Outlook – Outlook calendar is another excellent tool for maintaining and managing your work schedules. Track your meetings, events, activities, and tasks without any hassles.
  
• Calendly – It is an online scheduling software that lets you share what times you are available so that others can book meetings with you. It eliminates the back-and-forth email threads making meeting scheduling a breeze for you and others.

FAQs about Online Collaboration Tools

1. What can online collaboration tools help with?

Online collaboration tools help you keep all your team members on the same page by sharing real-time project updates and promoting transparency in communication.

2. What are the primary uses of collaboration software?

Collaboration software offers team members instant access to desired project information, improves communication with team members, and increases overall organizational efficiency.

3. How are businesses using collaboration tools?

Businesses are leveraging collaboration tools for numerous purposes. For example, team communication, project management, meeting scheduling, and more.

4. What are the best team collaboration tools?

Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Asana, Trello, Canva, and Zoom are some of the best tools for online collaboration. Refer to the above section for more recommendations.

Conclusion

Collaboration tools simplify your work processes by introducing transparency to your projects, facilitating clear communication among team members, and streamlining organizational efficiency for better decision-making. 

We have covered some amazing collaboration tool examples to help you choose the best ones for your business in this post. Understand your business requirements, invest in the right collaboration tools today, and observe your team productivity soar to great heights.