Over recent months many businesses and organisations across the globe are having to make dramatic changes to the way they work. Many companies have been sending their employees home due to COVID-19 to work remotely and encouraging online collaboration across the globe.
Remote working teams must get to grips with using digital tools to stay connected, share documents, hold meetings and collaborate remotely without needing to go into the office. In this article, we feature the best in collaboration software from our remote working teams perspective to directly communicate and collaborate on projects just as we would in the office.
We asked the team here at Coderus what programs or platforms they have been using to help get them through remote working over the last several months. Be prepared for some variety!
Slack
Number one on the list is Slack, the ultimate communication tool for remote working teams. Software development teams, like ours here at Coderus, need the most reliable and efficient communication tools as our projects rely heavily on client information. Our projects also require that there are effective internal communications to provide regular updates with team members, report roadblocks and ask for feedback.
Thanks to Slack, our in-house teams have been able to continue to practice effective communication throughout COVID-19. Slack is an integrated messaging app that connects your conversations with multiple tools and services to streamline work and projects. With Slack you can successfully manage and share files, exchange information and assign designated channels to manage workflows and discuss specific projects within teams.
Spotify
Spotify is also top of our list because after all, where would we all be without music in our lives? If it wasn’t for music, none of us would know what pure heaven sounds like, or be able to have a jam with our friends and family every now and again, even if it is on video chat! Listening to music can be great for getting into the swing of our daily tasks at work too.
Spotify has its own set of playlists ready for you to download and a list of genres to keep you entertained for hours, from pop, indie, chill, wellness, mood to those all-time throwbacks and classics. If you are looking for something a little more educational, then check out the latest podcasts! You can even connect the app to your wearable so that you can listen on the go and change the track you are listening to. Or, if you want to listen on the big screen, you can connect to other wireless devices nearby using a stable WiFi-connection.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams has been a true gem throughout lockdown for our remote working teams. This platform gives you the freedom to host online meetings, audio, visual and web conferences internally and with external partners and organisations. This makes Microsoft Teams the ideal digital platform for communicating externally with project managers and partners and keeping key stakeholders in the loop about the progress.
Using Teams, you can schedule deadlines, screen-share, upload files and instant message your teammates. But, what really sets this platform apart from the others is that it has a special feature whereby you can host webinars with up to 10,000 attendees.
Google Drive
Google Drive is a great collaboration tool, giving you access to your own Google Calendar, Shared Drive, Google Hangouts, Gmail and much more, so you can work on the go. With a shared access drive, you no longer need to worry about the hassle of having to save documents to your computer, and then sending them on using email.
With the Google Cloud, you can easily share files by providing a shared access link with your colleagues so they can add comments to your live document and continue the conversation using Google Hangouts to set up a video call. It is therefore one of the best digital file management platforms available right now helping teams collaborate and communicate regardless of time-zone difference, or place of work.
GitHub
Github provides the opportunity for remote team collaboration from hosting and reviewing code to managing projects and building software, making it most useful for software development teams. Github is the highest rated platform for developers with a 4.7 out of 5 G2 Crowd rating.
This platform provides a web-based graphical interface with access control and several collaboration features such as basic task management tools for every project. It operates using three main features – fork, pull request and merge making GitHub so powerful to use. You can take collaboration to the next level with security and administrative features built especially for teams.
Milanote
Milanote is a tool for organizing ideas and projects into visual boards. It provides a free-form canvas where you can arrange images, text, files all in one visual workspace.
By design, it feels a lot like working on the wall in a creative studio – visual, tactile and sometimes a bit messy – Milanote is a great fit for designers who work in teams remotely.
Conclusion
Remote working has forced many of us to implement changes to our working environment recently. The digital technology available to us is making it possible for us to be just as productive at home as we would have been in the office.
At Coderus we are focused on keeping up with the changing times and adapting to what technology is on offer to us.
If you would like to read more about how to be successful at your remote working projects visit our latest blog. Our service offering ranges from iOS and Android app development to hardware and embedded software development across all industry sectors. Interested? Get in touch.
