Emeka Nweze
The spread of coronavirus has altered the mode of operation of almost every spectrum of society. Governments are banning large gatherings, schools are being shut down, and people are being asked to stay at home. These drastic changes will is no doubt affect small businesses and organisations with on going tacks and projects.
However, technology has provided an alternative means for teams to carry out projects without physical meetings. Several online communication hubs and project management platforms have been created to help organisations plan, carry out and track the progress of tasks from the comfort of their homes or from anywhere at all. These platforms ensure that no task is abandoned and work is completed without hassle.
We have highlighted some of these platforms and the uses below.
1. Slack
Slack offers a communication hub where businesses and organisations can set up, carry out and monitor progress of projects. Slack teams allow communities, groups, or teams to join a “workspace” via a specific URL or invitation sent by a team admin or owner. Members can send public messages (everyone in the workspace), private messages (smaller sub-groups) and direct messages (to individuals). Slack also integrates with many third-party services and also supports community-built integrations such as Google Drive, Trello, Dropbox, Box.
2. Trello
Trello allows you organize plans, projects and more with boards, lists and cards. The app also lets you collaborate and share details about projects and tasks with other team members.
3. Microsoft Project
Microsoft Project is a project management software product that lets you easily plan projects and collaborate from virtually anywhere with. It is designed to assist a project manager in developing a schedule, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.
4. Asana
Asana is a web and mobile application designed to help teams organize, track, and manage their work. With Asana, teams can create projects, assign work to teammates, specify deadlines, and communicate about tasks directly. Asana enables teams easily organize and plan workflows, making sure work is on schedule.
5. Evernote Business
Evernote Business is basically a digital white board that allows teammates to access, edit, upload, and share notes and files from any device, at any given moment—even if they’re offline, helping you manage workflows with ease. Evernote Business also integrates with other popular apps like Slack, Outlook and Google Drive.
6. Teamwork
Teamwork is a project management app that helps you assign tasks, track progress, stay connected with your team and maximize efficiency whether you’re on the desk or on the go.
7. Toggl
Toggl is a time tracking that offers online time tracking and reporting services through their website along with mobile and desktop applications. You can keep track of your personal productivity and that of your team members by setting it to provide alerts when team members are idle for long periods of time. This ultimately promotes efficiency.
8. Podio
Podio is highly customizable online hub for organizing team communication, business processes, data and content in project management workspaces according to project needs. It streamlines and sync your teams projects and work flow as well as let you bring in clients or freelancers into the workspaces.
9. Hubstaff
Hubstaff is another productivity tracker, that provides staff monitoring through time tracking software. The app runs on tea members computers and provides screenshots, timesheets, billing, in-depth reports, and more for you in order to understand productivity issues and act on them.
10. Zoho
Zoho is online office suite with an array of features and online productivity tools that enables you run your business with ease, and with platforms that works best for your team’s individual needs. Some features include, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, note-taking, wikis, web conferencing, customer relationship management, project management, invoicing, among others.
11. Freedcamp
Freedcamp is a web, mobile and desktop project management and collaboration system for teams. Freedcamp allows users to assign tasks to people, set milestones, schedule events on a calendar, use discussion boards, and track time spent on tasks. Freedcamp is free for an unlimited number of users, files, and projects.
12. Zenkit
Zenkit is a cloud-based project management solution designed for businesses of all sizes. It offers collaboration, calendar management, task management, file sharing and project search functionalities within a suite. Zenkit’s task management feature allows users to add tasks to a project, assign them to people and track their status. Zenkit offers integration with different business systems, such as Google Sheets, Evernote, Trello, Slack and Gmail.
