2020 shook the world in a hundred different ways.
Overnight, teams were forced to stay home.
Instead of getting Starbucks for the morning office meeting, teams hopped on video calls in their jammies with homemade coffee — if they were lucky.
Many teams were left scrambling, trying to keep their ship afloat. And even worse, some had to call it quits altogether.
That’s why we can’t stress enough how important team collaboration software is. Your team’s success depends on it.
It’s never been so apparent that, without the right collaboration and communication tools, teams can’t get work done.
You want your team to thrive, and we want to help.
In this article, we’ll answer some commonly asked questions about online collaboration tools, show you a few options and give you our top pick — a solution we know will transform the way your team works together.
Team collaboration software: the skinny
Here’s a little Q&A section based on the most commonly-asked questions we hear about team collaboration software.
What is team collaboration software?
Collaborative software helps teams work together through various online tools and resources. This could be anything from communication to managing tasks and turning in projects.
Essentially, collaboration software is anything which enables you to collaborate.
A few examples:
- Using a sharable, editable, digital workflow to view, manage, and complete different stages of a project
- Using an online team calendar, timeline, or Gantt chart to see an overview of and track team events and meetings
- Using an intranet or native messaging tool to share designs for and discuss an upcoming social media campaign
Who uses team collaboration software?
The short answer here is that everyone who knows what they’re doing is using team collaboration software.
Businesses and teams that tend to get the most out of team collaboration software include…
- Project management teams
- Software development teams
- Marketing and design teams
- Sales and support teams
- Fully remote teams
Essentially those teams who need to be in constant communication, work jointly, and share information at the click of a button.
So yeah… everyone.
When would you use collaboration tools?
Anytime you need team members to work together or improve something together.
Some teams use collaboration tools to manage every aspect of work, while others use them as they need them.
Here are some collaboration features and when to use them:
- Use notifications to keep team members in the loop on project updates
- Use automation recipes to notify team members when a new project phase is starting or a specific task has been completed.
- Use project boards to assign tasks to team members and project leads
- Use calendars or Gantt charts to schedule work and review dependencies
- Use file sharing tools so multiple team members can access everything they need to for a given task
Let’s break this down even further by taking a look at how an actual team might use team collaboration software. .
Use case: team collaboration software for marketing teams
Alright, let’s say you run a content marketing agency.
Your agency has the following roles: Lead Editors, Preliminary Editors, Account Managers, Sales Managers, Accountants, Graphic Designers, Writers, and Visual Storytellers (still photos, video, etc.).
Your job as CEO and Content Strategist is to send content service requests to your team and keep an eye on major accounts and business growth. The rest of your team works together using strategic systems and processes to cover everything on the backend and frontend of the business — that’s why effective team collaboration can’t happen without a proper collaborative tool.
Okay, now let’s take a look at how these team members could use software to make business processes thrive.
Imagine this: every week starts because the end of the previous week was allocated to planning the following week. Every Thursday morning, your account managers sign in to their Work OS (like monday.com for example) to view batches of content service requests that you sent them presented in Kanban style. From there they can easily use a ‘People’ column to assign tasks to writers, designers, and visual storytellers:
They also use Slack or a built-in messaging feature to instantly chat back and forth about project requirements, due dates, and style questions as needed. If team members aren’t available immediately, they’ll easily see their @mentions when they get back:
Assignees immediately get email notifications when they receive an assignment, and sending a finished assignment to the next pipe is super easy for them — they simply update the assignment using a ‘Status’ column and choose ‘Done.’
Lead Editors and Preliminary Editors also receive notifications to check and edit completed assignments easily. They can also easily send the project back to the original creator and request changes without ever getting on the phone, sending a direct email, or scheduling a meeting.
Sales Managers use a Sales Process board to organize leads, keep up with deals won, and call leads without ever leaving the board by clicking on the phone numbers in the ‘Phone’ column:
Accountants use boards to keep a record of paid projects, organize completed assignments and payment due for each, and track other business expenses and profits. They also use dashboards for a high level view of all of their accounting boards:
And there you have it!
With the right software, your team has endless customizable options to manage every aspect of their job.
So how do you choose the right software? We’ll get to that next. 🙂
Choosing the right team collaboration software
When looking for collaboration tools, you need to find one that integrates seamlessly with other apps, has team and client communication features, has task management and project management features, and can scale-up as your team grows.
We’re going to cover several options, but the one that truly sparkles is monday.com.
#1. monday.com
Very simply, monday.com is the most complete collaboration software on the market.
Going anywhere else means you end up trying to juggle a zillion apps which leaves you more frustrated than you were when all you had was pen and paper.
monday.com is not only great as a standalone collaboration platform, but it also integrates with all your favorite tools. In other words, it’s better than Disney.
Why teams love using monday.com
You wanna know why teams enjoy using monday.com? Because it’s a blast!
It sounds simple, but isn’t that what makes the best team software? What happens if your team feels miserable, bored, and overwhelmed by team tools? They become annoyingly unproductive, work goes out the window, clients walk out the door, and chaos ensues.
Teams like using software that’s clean, easy-to-use, visually pleasing, and streamlines their workflow. And that’s what we’ve got at monday.com.
Some of our favorite features:
- Llama farm widget to inspire fun teamwork and raise team spirits
- Dashboards to help teams manage resources and gain insights about team performance
- Built-in messaging feature to easily communicate with project leads and team members
- Automations to systemize recurring tasks so teams can focus on stuff that bots can’t do
- Timeline view to track major milestones and keep everyone on task from start to finish
Plan options with monday.com
To choose a plan with monday.com, you’ll first choose your team size (called seats). The minimum team size is 3 and scales up to 200+ seats.
Ultimately, what you pay is based on your team size and the features you’re looking for. You also get a discount if you pay annually instead of monthly.
Check out our pricing page to find the right match for your team and budget.
monday.com’s customer service
We’re available 24/7 — yep, even on Christmas. We typically respond to all requests in less than an hour, but we try our best to get back to you ASAP. We’re pretty proud of our customer service team. They rock.
monday.com’s reviews
Small Business Trends recognized monday.com when they reported consultant Nicole Munoz saying you can “level up your success significantly” by using monday.com.
Oh, Nicole, you’re making us blush.
We also have other awards and recognitions too (yes, we’re bragging) like the Webby Award for Productivity in 2019 and 2020, among others.
We’re rated 4.6/5 stars by the coolest software review site G2, AND they recognized us as ‘Fall Leader 2020.’ Okay, okay that’s enough bragging for this section.
monday.com’s integrations
We have more than 40 powerful integrations like Gmail, Adobe Creative Cloud, LinkedIn, Eventbrite, Mailchimp, and more. Need more options? Use an app like Zapier to integrate monday.com with more than 2000 apps.
Bottom line: you gotta go with monday.com. You won’t find another platform that can compare.
#2. Slack
Slack is a messaging collaboration app that teams use to communicate in chat groups or what Slack calls ‘channels.’ Teams usually organize channels by department or project teams. They can also contact team members individually.
Their core features include:
- Channels
- Message threads
- Instant messaging
What plans do they offer?
Paid monthly plans start at $8 and include:
- Unlimited message archive
- Unlimited workspaces
- Message data exports
Slack’s customer service
To get support, you’ll need to peruse articles or send them a message in their help center.
Slack’s reviews
Slack received 4.5/5 stars on G2.
Slack’s integrations
Slack has several integration options like monday.com, Google Calendar, and Zendesk.
We happen to loooove our messaging features, but if you want to integrate Slack with your monday.com account, here’s how.
#3. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a team collaboration tool that gives teams a way to communicate via online meetings.
Their core features include:
- Online meetings (calling and video conferencing)
- Screen sharing
- Team chat
What plans do they offer?
Paid monthly plans start at $6 and include:
- Meeting recordings
- Administration tools
- Phone support
Microsoft Teams’ customer service
From what we can tell, support isn’t free unless you want to browse through help articles or speak with a help bot.
Microsoft Teams’ reviews
G2 gave Microsoft Teams 4.2/5 stars.
Microsoft Teams’ integrations
Microsoft Teams has integration options like Trello, Jira Cloud, and Polly, but most of their options aren’t very well known.
Guess what? Yep, we’ve got a Microsoft Teams integration too.
Why monday.com still takes the cake
We either offer everything the tools above do, or we offer an integration option that does.
This means never leaving monday.com to: manage your team’s schedule, send messages to team members, see how a team’s performing, see what projects your team is working on, keep track of meetings, and anything else your team needs.
How to use monday.com to bring value to your team
Use our Zoom integration to track scheduled Zoom meetings, record meeting notes, and assign post-meeting tasks to team members:
Use our ‘Team Updates Widget’ to stay on top of birthdays, team events, team members who just joined the crew, and work anniversaries. Talk about being a good teammate, right?
Improve team communication and save meetings for more important things. Use our ‘Status’ column to update where a project stands so the entire team’s in the loop:
Take status updates even further with our status column notes. This is great for file sharing, to point something out, or to tag someone to approve your work:
Use the ‘People’ column to assign specific team members to specific projects so everyone knows what they’re responsible for:
Use the ‘General’ group at the top of all our boards to communicate about general topics that apply to multiple teams. This is the perfect spot for team guidelines, processes, and important updates for the company as a whole:
Still craving more ways to manage projects and collaborate with your team? Check out more tips here.
Last word
Your team can’t succeed without team collaboration software. Luckily, we’re here to help with every collaboration solution you need. Let us show you how we can transform every aspect of your team’s productivity.
Get started today. (Free trial, no credit card required).
