The coronavirus outbreak spreads panic over the world at lightning speed. Donald Trump announced a 30-day travel ban for EU citizens to the US. In his speech, he mentioned:
“The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hotspots, and as a result, a large of new clusters in the USA were seeded by travelers from Europe.”
Such a statement was condemned by the European officials. The EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, pointed out that the global crisis caused by COVID-19 shouldn’t be limited to a continent. Is it good news for you? Well, if you are a EU citizen and you were heading to the US for working purposes, you might have to work remotely for several weeks or months. If you are a staunch advocate of teleworking, you might consider it to be an excellent chance to stay with your family and friends for some time. But, how are you going to track your performance and make sure you do not fall behind? In our article, we’ve prepared the list of top 10 instruments and tools that will be at hand for you!
1. Zoom
By installing this remote collaboration tool on your device, you can organize video conferences, meetings, and webinars. Zoom runs seamlessly on any operating system — whether it is an iOS, Mac, Android or Windows. The company offers three packages to its users: free, business, and pro. So, if you have a restricted budget and want to organize a 40-minute video conference for 100 participants, you can go with the basic option from Zoom. A business package has more features, which includes admin dashboard, cloud recording transcripts, etc. With a pro option, it’s possible to save video conferences and meetings on 1GB cloud.
2. Meeting Owl
It’s a product with a 360-degree video camera, microphone, and speaker system designed to organize a catching teleconference experience. Meeting Owl Pro works perfectly with Skype, and Zoom. The Forbes listed this tool among the best for remote employees to collaborate with their teammates and clients. Another product of a company, Meeting Owl, has less functionalities than a Meeting Owl Pro, and it’s more suitable for small conference rooms and workspaces. In general, Meeting Owl creates products to ease the lives of remote workers, organizing live conferences that can turn any small room into a Smart Meeting Room.
3. Go-to-Meeting
LogMeIn, a large corporation that creates products specially designed for remote work. This web conference instrument is intended for organization of online conferences and meetings. Go-to-Meeting can host nearly 250 participants. Also, this product offers a bunch of useful features, such as room launcher, cloud recording system, the possibility to switch to the commuter mode, and make voice commands that help users track, see, record, and book conferences on the go. Apart from that, there is a 365 office plugin that enables participants to manage meetings and join them online without a hitch. Go-to-Meeting is highly secured against cyber threats with its SAML SSO login since it protects users from any unauthorized access.
4. Airtable
Airtable is an online collaboration tool that makes managing remote teams easier and provides you with a chance to visualize your workflow in one place. It is a perfect tool when you have to manage multiple projects remotely. Create separate dashboards, use filters to group your tasks, and set status. Furthermore, users rate this instrument as secure & private, so you don’t need to worry about cyber attacks and other risks.
5. Slack
Being one of the most popular online workspaces, Slack has gained its popularity among SME businesses and large corporations due to its ease of use, high performance, and a wide selection of features. This is the platform where all your teammates are brought together to collaborate, exchange ideas or simply chat. If you have any questions or requests, you can drop a line to your colleague or create a channel to connect with the whole team. What employees also value is the possibility to integrate other tools here, such as MailChimp, MailForce, Airtable, etc. So, you can get notified when you get a new task or receive an email to your inbox, which is frequently seen as a useful option.
6. Skype for Business
Skype is known as one of the most popular video conferencing tools designed for organizing high-quality video calls. Many people use it daily for their own purposes, but a few know there is a more advanced version of this software, which is more suitable for business use. It comes with a set of extra features, such as big conference rooms, excellent video quality, and a high level of security. There is also a set of collaboration tools that may assist you with webinars and online meetings, such as whiteboards, screen sharing, and polls. So, if you work for a small company with up to 20 people, this functionality is more than enough to keep in touch with your team when you work remotely.
7. Chanty
It is a convenient AI-powered massaging platform designed to help teleworkers to avoid communication breakdown. If your workload heavily depends on interaction with your teammates, you may use Chanty as a place to exchange ideas, save files, or manage tasks. There is also a possibility to integrate other apps into the platform, such as Trello, MailChimp, or GitLab, which is quite useful if you work with a variety of them.
8. MatterMost
Slack is so dominant on its market that entrepreneurs frequently miss other alternatives, which are often more cost-effective and provide a similar set of features. If you’re looking for the workspace to bring your remote team together, consider MatterMost as one of the options. It is an open-source, cloud-based messaging platform where you can engage with your co-workers, create chats and organize video calls. So, you have everything you need for setting up a convenient remote workflow.
9. Sococo
Sococo is the place where distributed teams come together to work on joint projects. Whether you are a freelancer or an employee in a large corporation, this online workplace will help you to manage tasks effectively and bring all your team members to a single platform. Chat with your co-workers, exchange files, run video calls, or organize workshops, and share your screen. This tool will definitely help you to stay on track in the time of a crisis.
10. Mural
For the majority of people, visuals are more memorable compared to other types of information. Mural was designed to assist distributed teams with task management by providing them with appealing and bright dashboards. This tool is especially useful if you operate in creative industries. Set tasks, turn your ideas into visually attractive assets, evaluate results, develop reports — and everything with a single platform.
Now, equipped with all the best instruments and tools for effective teleworking, you know how to keep an eye on all your tasks even when you’re not in the office. Try several options, communicate with your teammates, and choose the one that best fits your needs. Who knows, perhaps, this crisis will help you to establish a reliable remote work infrastructure that will serve your company for years to come.
Want to develop your own remote collaboration tool? Contact LITSLINK for IT development services, and we’ll help you find the best solution adjusted to your needs!
