Are you overwhelmed by all the new technologies?
Do you wish there was a way you could funnel all the new technologies down to just the ones that will give you an immediate productivity gain?
You’re probably wishing there was a simple way to cut through all the new technology and find the collaboration tools that can help you to improve productivity.
We thought something like this would be useful, so we’ve put together a short guide.
You’re about to learn what I have found are the best collaboration tools for improving productivity. The insight I’ll share in this blog post has been gathered from our senior technical managers at R&G Technologies.
1. SharePoint
SharePoint is a document management and company intranet platform that helps your team to communicate together and collaborate on projects.
The tool has a number of features which allow you to bring staff together into a central location - examples of this are a repository for company forms & procedures, or where you might have a knowledge base to which everyone needs quick access. It’s also great for sharing important information within particular departments, things that everyone needs to know. Forget group emailing everybody! Pop it on the department's maiun page inside SharePoint, and everyone can access the information and can add to it when they need to.
Related: What is SharePoint? What are the benefits of SharePoint?
2. Lync
Lync is an instant messaging and unified communication solution that gives your team the ability to video conference, share screens and chat like the old MSN messaging system.
It is particularly useful for communicating with team members. Instead of having to get up and go over to a colleague’s desk only to find they’re away or out at lunch, you can quickly send them a message on Lync and save you time. Additionally, you sync your calendar automatically with Lync so all your meetings and appointments show up on your status, making it easy for everyone to see if you’re in a meeting or offsite with a client.
Related: What is Lync? What are the benefits of Lync?
3. Microsoft Project
Microsoft Project is a project management tool allows multiple people to work on projects together. This helps you get your important initiatives executed effectively and makes it really easy for the people to add and contribute.
Project is great for quickly estimating project timelines, linking dependencies and calculating choke points on projects. You can work collaboratively to create tasks, assign team members, and attach a priority level.
4. Google Apps
Google Apps has a number of features - amongst others it enables multiple staff to work on the one document at the same time. They can simultaneously comment, edit and make changes to a single document. All changes are tracked in real time so the other collaborates can see what is being edited.
This collaboration tool is particular useful when you have two or more people that need to collaborate on an important sales proposal, website content, or blog post. Instead of having to send it back and forth via email and wasting hours; everyone can add their insights and quickly produce a finished copy.
Improve productivity through collaboration tools
Collaboration tools are an important way to make your organisation more efficient. Gone are the days of having to wait tirelessly for responses via email on time-sensitive documents, proposals and marketing material.
Use collaboration tools to make your organisation more transparent and bring your team together to work more productively.
Imagine if you could cut the time you spend sending documents back and forth via email?
I challenge you to start evaluating these products today. Have a look at each of these to determine which ones can help you improve productivity.
If you need an extra hand with this evaluation process, we can help. Call us 1300 562 886.