Document safety, file sharing, and knowledge sharing have become an integral part of modern collaborative culture. Other than saving time, virtual collaboration aims at improving your work, making you impressively productive, providing you with a flawless end product and placing you ahead of the competition. In addition, this allows you to communicate and collaborate not only with your office, home based and geographically dispersed teams, but your customers as well.
Our society started seeing the significance of client feedback, along with its essentiality in businesses worldwide. Is this another feature that you are looking for in collaborative software – to be connected to your client? If the answer is yes – the following software can most certainly deliver you that. Whether you manage to make your business more efficient with collaborative software is entirely up to you, your wish to invest in yourself and your enterprise, to see the differences in the given software and decide on the adequate one. Depending on the type of your business, team size, and project needs, one software tool rather than the other could be more suitable for you.
In a meticulous search for finding software with features that can fulfill this overriding task, check out 15 software tools for efficient external and internal business collaboration:
1. ActiveCollab
By making distance irrelevant, this software is suitable for teams of advertising agencies, universities, and software companies. It places internal communication, task distribution, file sharing, deadline monitoring, and discussion partaking in a secure, and yet accessible virtual environment.
Access to multiple accounts and following different trials is enabled through a unique user dashboard, while the customer service offers support through email, chat or phone.
The very software is easy to use; however, it requires a specific amount of training.
For Android users, there is an ActiveCollab android application, which can currently only be used with the Cloud version, while the activeCollab iOS app works with self-hosted activeCollab accounts.
2. Pyrus
Pyrus can be efficiently used in small to medium enterprises regardless of the type of the industry. It enables and empowers business process management together with task management.
Work flows can be customized according to the user’s preferences, while some other features include automatic deletion of finished tasks and unique access for multiple users.
After going through a webinar and online training, you will be skilled to use this software easily.
One of the great features that makes Pyrus stand out is its mobile application which can be used offline.
3. Cluster
Cluster, as web based collaborative software, recognizes the obsoleteness of emails and does not support email integration.
Filtering content feature saves time on your behalf; content management eases creating, managing and publishing content, while project management of this software adds to the flexibility of the strategy approach regarding your projects.
Cluster’s built-in knowledge management contributes to concrete problem solving by enabling structure and organization to your company.
In addition to being user friendly with one minute setup, some of the features of this software are group discussions, customized tabs, group specific homepages and on premise hosting.
4. Clinked
With no built in costs, Clinked enables logo integration to your platform, creating a unique, customized virtual board for client communication, a distinct URL, with personalized desktop and mobile applications.
Updates are displayed in real time where the choice is yours when it comes to activities you want to be informed about.
You will not miss out on anything thanks to the automatic email notifications, and access to all document versions. Any version needed or wanted can be restored, while editors can add comments.
5. ProofHub
Another Web based tool that does not require beforehand training for its use is ProofHub.
It encompasses features of any serious collaborative software, such as keeping track of the tasks, presentation of the covered tasks or projects in percentages, time sheets, Gantt chart, reports and full control over task management.
Tasks can be clearly labeled according to the needs of the specific projects, individuals or teams involved – whatever your current needs are. Reorganization of tasks and subtasks is carried out via easy drag and drop method, with simple move/copy navigation.
This software will make feedback less time consuming by enabling you to comment directly to the tasks and retrieve documents from Google Drive or Dropbox bypassing using emails, flash or hard drives.
Even though there is not much you can gain with the Nano and Standard package, depending on your company’s needs, this may be the right tool for you.
6. Centroy
What Centroy aims at is to enable participation of everyone involved in the collaboration process. The administrative control of this software is centralized, allowing the administrators to manage content, restrict access and information or assign permissions to those taking part.
If your business calls for an unlimited number of private groups, Centroy will make it happen.
Whether you are using an Intranet or Extranet site, remember that it can be designed according to your brand.
7. Flatsies
Flatsi.es is designer oriented software intended to facilitate the communication between clients and designers.
Hosting projects online and sharing them with clients via URL is one of the features of this software. Password protected projects will assure your clients that they do not need to worry about safety.
Some other handy features are automatic retina scaling; batch uploads and content browsing with a mobile application.
Free version allows managing 4 projects at a time, while going pro makes this number infinite.
8. Brightpod
Marketing projects can be covered with Brightpod, software perfect not just for marketing, but creative teams as well. Brightpod measures and tracks the process of current projects, controls task delegation and pending content for clients.
It is entirely web-based, multilingual, Google Drive and Dropbox integrated, easy to use and with personalized support team by your side.
9. ProTasker
Forget about instant messaging, discussion boards and document management. With collaborative software such as ProTasker, you have one location for client tracking.
Regardless of you being a one-person company, a small or a medium-sized business, you can safely hand over your calendar to ProTasker; create, and assign tasks keeping track of the time spent on projects.
For an easy access to the client database, there is the client Manager which stores information needed for you to carry out tasks efficiently and productively.
10. DeskAway
For those tired of downloading, installing and configuring, this software is only minutes away from getting you started.
Available features provide insights into project activities, workloads, project listing, milestones and progress reports for different projects, not leaving task delegation and time tracking behind.
Satisfied customers said: “DeskAway helped reduce the internal communication overhead and helped us to focus on execution of the event”.
11. Auralink
If you are looking for a perfect web based video conferencing tool, your search can end. This software can ensure efficient communication, simple connection establishment with customers, colleagues and associates.
Other than desktop or a laptop, you need a solid internet connection, and your web conferences with up to fifty participants can start.
Teams of your company’s remote offices can safely distribute and share content in an instant.
12. Framebench
Faithfull users of Framebench are marketing and advertising agencies, architecture firms, research and consulting, law firms, students and educators, creative design firms and video production houses.
Documents can be reviewed, annotated and commented on, with a visual effect of writing over them.
13. Huddle
Huddle allows quick and easy interaction among project participants. Rest assure that you will have an immediate access to information, secure storage and file exchange, along with the productive task management and tracking of Web based presentations.
User activities are automatically recorded, which means that you are up-to –date with any changes. Also, Huddle application successfully syncs to mobile phone devices.
14. Join.me
If the nature of your business requires face-to-face online meetings, Join .me is software you might find quite appealing.
Features which have found a central role with the customers are unlimited audio and one-click scheduling.
The unlimited audio option is available in 40 countries worldwide; it successfully overcomes remoteness and distance, enhancing collaboration, communication and business efficiency between the remote teams.
15. Hackpad
With Hackpad you can break projects into subtasks and assign them to team members. In addition, use collaborative notes and comments for pointing out problems and sharing solutions or ideas and decide whether they will be displayed in real-time or read asynchronously.
Cloud back-up enables access to information, data, objectives and to–do lists both online and offline from any device.
Finally, depending on your project’s needs, include participants, partners, colleagues or teammates.
If you have employees who are eager to collaborate via software, you are in for a big gain that will be reflected in your business’ efficiency and productivity. How to be sure you have made the right choice? You will know if the software itself enables your business’ growth and keeps up with it.