Published on February 28th, 2020 | by Guest

10 Best Online Collaboration Tools for Teams

Collaboration acts as a ‘secret sauce’ for boosting creativity. New doors to communication are opened and productivity is improved when effective collaboration methods are used by teams.

There is a wide range of collaborative tools available to make collaboration smooth and effortless for teams.

Here are the list of best online collaboration tools:

1. Filestage

Filestage is a tool that helps design teams collaborate effectively by providing project managers with complete control over the review and approval process. With just a few clicks, managers can invite reviewers to provide feedback on a design.

The people concerned can provide their in-context feedback without leaving any space for ambiguity in the feedback process. An integrated to-do list can create tasks for the teams automatically as per the feedback. That means there is no chance of you missing any important part of the client feedback and your designs will always be up to the mark. So, collaborating on design feedback and making changes becomes a breeze with this tool.

Main features of Filestage are:

Integrated to-do list
Collaborate in real time
Comment on videos, PDF, Image files
Clients can comment without registering
Archive and export comments

2. ProofHub

ProofHub is a project management and collaboration tool that can streamline the collaboration process for all kinds of teams. It has a simple and intuitive interface. ProofHub is a tool that lets teams collaborate, communicate, discuss and plan the various aspects of projects at one place such that they do not need to spend on various tools for different purposes.

With ProofHub, managers can clearly define roles and responsibilities by assigning tasks on the Kanban board and the entire team receives real-time notifications on task progress. As a result of which, every time a task stage changes, the next concerned person can immediately get notified and take over. This way, managers as well as team members, are saved from the email web for the exchange of useful project related information.

Apart from this, collaborating on files and documents and providing feedback becomes absolutely easy with ProofHub as team members can share files, add a comment on tasks where files are attached, provide feedback using the inbuilt proofing tool, all in one place.

The entire team can come together to discuss the important matters or for brainstorming sessions using inbuilt tools like Discussions.

The main features of ProofHub are:

Simple and intuitive interface, little-to-no learning curve
Real-time notifications
No per-user charges
Multiple views of tasks
Highly customizable

3. Asana

Asana is another project management software that helps teams collaborate and communicate better. It helps teams collaborate on everything from daily tasks to larger goals of the team. Asana allows team members to view their tasks and work visually in a clear manner. It allows team members clarity on their duties, team members can collaborate on tasks, share files, add comments and stay on the same page always.

The to-do list and calendar help in the strategic planning of projects. Apart from this, managers can get a clear visibility into the workloads of its team members and allocate tasks accordingly for better streamlining the processes.

Main features of Asana are:

To-do list
Recurrent task management
Customizable
Many integrations

4. Trello

Trello is a project management software that can make the work of design teams easier and organized. It organizes the projects in the form of boards. These boards help in keeping everybody updated on what is being worked on, who is working on what, what is the current status of a task, etc.

Apart from task management, design teams can use Trello for incoming request management, brainstorming, etc.

Trello acts as a central location to keep all your feedback, notes, file versions, files, etc. Some of the powerful integrations of Trello are InVision, Dropbox, Figma, etc.

Main features of Trello are:

Collaboration tool
Intuitive user interface
Easy drag and drop editing
Deadline alerts and notifications

5. Chanty

Chanty is a team chat tool that makes collaboration easier for team members. Teams can keep all their conversations, tasks, pinned messages, and all shared content at one central place called ‘Teambook’ in Chanty. Team members can have access to their message history. You can even attract the attention of teammates by mentioning them in the chat.

Team members can share all types of media content be it Youtube, Coub, GIF or social media content in Chanty without any need to switch platforms.

Chanty facilitates collaboration not only through messaging features, but it also allows task management. Managers can assign tasks and everybody stays on the same page regarding the progress of work through real-time notifications.

Main features of Chanty are:

Simple to use
No message history limit
Built-in tasks
Real-time chat

6. Hangouts

Hangouts Chat allows teams to collaborate through direct messages as well as group conversations. Hangouts Chat is available to G-Suite customers for no additional price.

Users can upload files from the drive, collaborate on documents, sheets and presentations.

They can also conduct online meetings using the ‘Hangout Meet’ feature.

The advanced search feature of Hangouts lets you go through your past messages and also find when files were shared with you. It allows you to integrate directly with the Calendar to set meetings.

Main features of Hangouts are:

Good interface
Easy to learn
Access to the chat history

7. Canva

Canva is a tool that helps designers collaborate on the designing process in two ways- ask for comments and open to edit. Designers can simply share their designs with various people and can allow people to either only add comments or allowing them to collaborate by making the edits.

Designers can create great designs and docs in no time and collaborate effectively for feedback with other designers. You can get a lot of design content available for you in Canva.

It enables businesses to design and collaborate on a variety of stuff like graphs, prints, presentation slides with professional layouts, templates, voice icons or frames, etc.

Main features of Canva are:

Custom templates
Social media graphics
Layouts for every occasion
Photo editing

8. InVision

InVision is a great tool for designers that helps them prepare excellent design prototypes. Designers can create interactive mockups for their designs quickly with InVision. Rather than sending out a PDF or number of screenshots to their clients, designers can send them an interactive prototype which makes your work a lot more presentable.

All progress related to a design from start to finish can happen inside the InVision app.

The clients can provide feedback inside the app by leaving their comments on the design screen itself. Clients can set a point on the screen and leave a comment associated with that point for discussion. A to-do list is created for the designer at the same time and others can also join in the discussion.

Here are the main features of InVision:

Great presentation
Real-time to-do lists
Version history
Collaboration through Live Share

9. Red Pen

This is one tool that makes the feedback process super fun and is great if you look for constructive criticism on your projects. Red Pen is a tool that has been designed specifically for designers. They can drag and drop their designs into a dashboard and invite their clients or colleagues to provide real-time feedback as you bring forth your latest updates.

Version history is one of the best features of Red Pen such that you can go back to the previous versions of your design if you want.

Main features of Red Pen are:

Designers can add comments to proof
Designers can highlight text on a proof
Designers can draw on the proof using the drawing Pen tool

10.) Mockplus

Mockplus is a prototyping tool that is simple, fast and smart with the help of which designers and product managers can easily create, test and share prototypes. It allows design teams to easily edit and improve a design, and gather feedback.

Main features of Mockplus are:

Easy and effective collaboration
Powerful icon library
Page and sample library

Conclusion

Collaboration in person is not always the greatest idea to share, discuss and brainstorm on projects. Tools and technologies not only save time but also help in maintaining transparency and clarity in the collaborative efforts of a team.

Apart from this, when team members are sitting away in terms of time and space, collaboration software allows people sitting at various places share documents, videos, messages, etc. in a central location. Collaboration tools allow communication to flow in the form of a dialog rather than being lost, piled up or hard to find in the email threads.

The collaboration tools mentioned in the above article are instrumental in making the work of a designer super smooth and easier. Choose one that suits your needs, if you are already using any of these, do let me know in the comment section.

Tags: collaboration, project management, proofhub, team, tools