If you work in the corporate world, or simply work in any office setting, you know how important it is to be efficient. Being efficient could mean several things in the workplace, like having fewer meetings, minimizing your planning or maximizing your team collaboration, which is perhaps the most underrated tool in efficiency.
Since many employees within an organization often work on different schedules from one another or work from home, it’s important that scheduling conflicts don’t affect your productivity. Since many companies are adopting the bring your own device policy, employees can access collaborative applications even when they are out of the office. But you must be careful, as some offices have policies about storing private business documents on a third party device.
Here are five great apps for team collaboration:
This is a great application that is compatible not only on your PC or Mac but your smartphone device as well. If you need to access files and folders from your office network when you are out of the office, simply access your Dropbox app and open any file on your mobile device. This is a free app that comes with 2.5 gigabytes of storage, but for $100 a year, you can get up to 100 gigabytes for your network.
These are great, common apps most affiliated with Androids since the apps were made by Google, but they are compatible with iPhones and BlackBerrys as well. Within the Google App for Business, you can get access to Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides in your cloud, as well as Hangouts, which is good to communicate with all of your out-of-office workers.
This is a solid business social networking platform that allows you to post project updates, share files, comment on your co-workers’ progress on certain tasks, solve problems and brainstorm ideas, all within this mobile application. The basic network edition is available for free on all smartphone platforms, but versions with additional features range from $3 to $8 a month depending on what kind of account you choose.
With this app, you can conduct online meetings, something many employees have done in the past. On the PC and Mac version, the application capability allows everyone in the meeting to see what is on the host’s screen and vice versa. The mobile application allows you to schedule and start a meeting with your phone.
Salesforce has tons of different kinds of mobile applications that benefit team collaboration in the workplace. The company continues to pave the way for many other collaboration apps. A great app is the Salesforce Chatter app, which is similar to Facebook. It allows you to update your status on specific projects and also track the activities of their other collaborators. Chatter also gives you the ability to call, text or email from within the application.
Working outside of the office doesn’t mean you can’t be productive. You can join your co-workers and accomplish your tasks with any of these team collaboration apps.
Author Information:
Jennifer Thayer is a freelance writer who enjoys finding ways people can use technology to make their lives easier. She enjoys sharing ways people can utilize gadgets and technology strategies, like the bring your own device policy. Follow her on Twitter (@TechyJen) to see what tips she comes up with next.