Service for collaboration with colleagues. Project Management

Perhaps a significant part of your work and projects is done online. But it can be difficult for you and your boss to prioritize tasks according to their importance. Hence the need for managers to use various online collaboration applications. Moreover, this is when they have to resort to the help of job management tools.

Online collaboration tools help your managers, your team, and yourself stay up to date on project progress, which can change and you may not always be able to keep track of. If there are a lot of project management instructions, if they are updated and corrected, like the project itself, then all these updates are immediately displayed in the control panel. Here is an overview of 10 collaboration apps that you can use as a project manager.

1. Taking notes: Producteev

Do you need to track the progress of tasks, and at the same time "gather in a circle" your team members? Try Producteev in action. Producteev is a social task management platform that allows you to notify several people at once about important aspects performing current tasks. Producteev allows you to manage as many projects as you like, and provide details and progress updates to as many groups and individuals as you choose to list.

2. Virtual work environment: Podio

3. Conference session: Conceptboard

4. Custom teamwork: basecamp

6. Ease of Use: Google Apps for Enterprise

[Service free to use]

7. Issue Tracking: Goplan

9. Business expansion: Worketc

[free use]

10. Crown of business: ProWork Flow

[free use]

It is not surprising that in recent times all more people prefer to work from home, or simply refuse to travel and prefer to stay in touch using remote work tools. That is why you decided to publish an overview of the tools for this.

• Ta-da List
  Ta-da List is a tool for group work with lists. If you need to maintain lists within a team, this is the most suitable tool that does its job well, but is not overloaded with functionality.
• time bridge
  TimeBridge is a scheduling system that integrates with Google Calendar, Exchange and Outlook and makes it easy to manage meeting schedules between people living in different time zones.
• Campfire
  Campfire is another brainchild of the creators of Basecamp and Backpack, a web application that combines chat and instant messaging functions, which is created specifically for business use. The free version allows no more than 4 users to participate at the same time, but this is often enough.
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets
  The main element of any list of tools for group work. - this is probably one of the best tools for group work today. You can both edit texts and work with tables together with your colleagues.
• Writeboard
  If you're looking for something simpler than Google's tools, then you might like Writeboard, which is a lightweight and simple web application that works great with revision history and allows you to collaborate on simple documents in a simple and understandable way.
• Evernote
  Evernote is a wonderful tool for saving all sorts of notes, and has collaboration features so you can send documents from user to user. in this way, you can even write an entire book together with other authors. You can, of course, use Google Docs for this, but there are no such opportunities for creating notes and quotes from a variety of sources. Although it is possible to use Google Notebook and Google Docs together for the same purposes.
• mixin
  Mentioned earlier allows you to use only the time that all participants have designated as free, Mixin takes on the job of offering a convenient time from the point of view of the system for everyone. This tool can serve as an accompaniment to TimeBridge when participants can't find common free time for everyone.
• Task2Gather
  There are a bunch of online task systems out there, but they are better suited for project management and team collaboration than many, if not all of them. If you're looking for an app that combines both personal task management and team project management, Task2Gather is a good choice.
• MediaWiki
  Wiki has long been regarded as one of the most advanced collaboration tools out there, combining collaborative editing with communication, notification, group mailing, and more.
  MediaWiki is demanding when it comes to deployment and customization, but it certainly makes up for it with its rich features.
• Delicious
  If you have to work where there is a need to constantly evaluate and process links in a team, then this is the best tool for this. Adding view tags for:username, you can create a list of links to view a particular team member, organizing something like a to-do list.
• WordPress
  If you're looking for a blog that's well-suited for collaborative blogging, then WordPress, with the latest changes, is a great choice. It is not even worth recommending anything else to support a collective blog. among other things, it supports version control and therefore makes it easy to roll back unnecessary changes and correct the situation in case of any trouble.

Guest post by Nina Gorbunova, web browser

If you think that project management systems are a tool used only in large companies from 500 people, you will be very surprised to learn that, according to statistics, 70% of the users of such systems are small and medium business(companies from 10 to 300 people), as well as freelancers.

time tracking, possibility effective communication within a team, regardless of location, distribution of responsibilities and reporting - these are the components without which it is impossible to imagine joint work online, regardless of how many people work on the project.

At the same time, of course, it should be understood that large-scale clumsy systems serving the largest companies in the world are unlikely to take root in teams of 7-10 people. However, even a tiny task manager will never satisfy the needs of Google's multi-storey office. Therefore, before proceeding with the review of systems for collaborative work of small teams, I propose to determine the main criteria for selecting these same systems.

So let's say I'm the leader of a 10-person web design team.

• I won't post large sums per software, if only because at this stage I more joy I will put them in new tablets. The solution should be at least free, maximum - provided at a reasonable price. I don't want to end up with a cumbersome, clumsy, hard-to-implement system. I want to be sure that my data is safe.
• I want the system to include all the basic tools I need to get the job done - time tracking, responsibilities, file sharing and discussion, and report generation.

Based on these requirements, I propose to pay attention to the following systems, which can be useful for both small teams and freelancers.

1) Teamer

Let's start small. Teamer is a really small and, in my opinion, quite simple collaboration system.

In the words of the developers

“teamer.ru - web service for organizing team work on projects. First of all - over Internet projects, although it can be used for planning some personal affairs or something else.”

How Teamer works

The team is divided into groups according to projects and distribute tasks (tickets) among themselves. Users are divided into executors and managers, this is how access rights to projects and tasks are determined.

3 main sections of the system - “where is everyone”, “who is to blame” and “what to do”. When there are so many tasks that it is not clear what to take on in the first place, the “I'm feeling lucky” button can help out.

Solution cost

The SaaS version of Teamer is provided free of charge, but from the end of 2012 the developers promise to start selling boxed versions.

2) teamlab

In the words of the developers

“TeamLab is a multifunctional web office for collaboration, document and project management”

How teamlab works

In fact, Teamlab is a collection of 4 modules - Project Management, Document Management, Collaboration and CRM. In addition to the standard set of collaboration tools, this platform offers the ability to create your own knowledge base - a corporate Wikipedia, conduct polls with voting, share bookmarks. What's more, you can do full-fledged work with documents: create, edit and share text documents, spreadsheets and presentations without the need to resort to third-party applications. Teamlab can be deployed not only as a SaaS solution, but also on your own server, as well as in your personal Amazon cloud.

Price

All 4 Teamlab modules + 1 Gb workspace are provided free of charge. However, if this is not enough for your team, you can add another 49 Gb of memory to your portal for $49 per month.

3) Teambox

In the words of the developers

“teambox is an online project management tool for teams”

How teambox works

In fact, Teambox, first of all, is a platform for active communication between team members. The developers do not hide the fact that when creating the system, they took the style of communication in social networks as an example. As a result, members post information about how things are progressing in their statuses in real time - just like Facebook and Twitter users do - all updates are displayed on the main panel. Teambox allows you to create task lists for each project, see responsible persons and deadlines, and synchronize all data with the calendar.

Despite the fact that the project belongs to American developers, the system is also presented in the Russian-language interface.

Price

FROM free version Teambox You get 50 MB of disk space and the ability to manage 3 projects at the same time. 6 projects and 200 Mb of workspace will cost $12 per month.

4) Task Manager Free from Megaplan

In the words of the developers

“Task Manager Free - it is an easy and convenient online interface for small companies and private entrepreneurs”

How Task Manager Free works

Task Manager from Megaplan allows you to set tasks and combine them into projects, monitor their implementation, see the workload and evaluate the performance of each employee, schedule meetings and meetings with colleagues and clients, and use all the features of corporate mail without leaving the system. A fly in the ointment in this barrel of megahoney is only serious restrictions on the use of the system. Let's say that there can only be 3 people online at the same time in Megaplan.

Price

As the name implies, Task manager free provided absolutely free. The minimum fee for task manager light and his older brother starts from 61 rubles per license.

5) Planfix

In the words of the developers

“Planfix - it's easy to learn and effective tool business management”

How Planfix works

Planfix is ​​another example of how minimalism in project management systems is generally appropriate. A very clear structure has been adopted within the system - Project, united by him Tasks and attached to each Task Action. Each task has a status ( new, in progress, finished and completed), in addition, you can attach the necessary files to each task, set the repeatability and any number of performers.

Some actions in Planfix are available via email: for example, employees can set tasks and conduct correspondence on them without logging into the system. The Analytics and Report sections complete the functionality of the platform, allowing you to objectively assess the current state of affairs on projects.

Price

Planfix is ​​a free tool. The guys shared the motives of their altruism in official blog. No trick.

6) Teamtools

In the words of the developers

“Teamtools - Your corporate portal”

How teamtools works

Teamtools for a small team is a functional task manager, where all system participants are divided into authors, performers and co-executors (in addition, there is the possibility of participation “on behalf of”).
Each team member has a personal organizer that displays all his activity: tasks, events, files and contacts.

For each task, you can set the status: draft, not started, in execution, acceptance, completed. With any significant change in the task, the system generates an automatic notification to all interested parties.

The platform comes with 1 Gb of file storage, as well as the ability to view html, xps, doc, docx, xlsx, pdf files and edit doc and html

Price

Teamtools for a small team costs 200 rubles per month, while teamtools for personal use is provided free of charge (with limited functionality)

7) Birdviewproject

In the words of the developers

“birdviewproject - collaboration and project management system”

How Birdview works

As in most systems for collaboration, here you can set tasks, select performers, group them by projects. One of the platform's differences is flexible system customization. For example, it is possible to add your own task fields and even keep track of labor costs and billing. “Bird's-eye view” is the main feature of the system, reflected in the name. In fact, behind this promise lies the possibility of a detailed look (Zoom'a) on current affairs. On the control panel, each project is displayed as a small card (see screenshot) and the higher the detail, the more details about current state project becomes available to your eyes.

Price

Birdviewprojects free plan is for 1 user, 3 projects and 3 clients +100 Mb of workspace. For a small team, the Startup or Team plan for 3 and 10 users may be suitable for $9 and $29 per month, respectively.

To organize the work of the team and track the status of tasks, there are many online services. Some are more suitable for IT development, others for designers. We collected the main systems, described the principle of their work and took comments from those who work with them.

How to choose services for teamwork

External clients are granted access to certain tasks without registration.

Application users set deadlines, hold discussions, upload files for each card. Members working group see changes in real time, can archive cards.

There are apps for iOS and Android.

The basic version (one improvement, files up to 10 MB) is free, the minimum paid one is $9.99 per month per user with annual payment.

Benefits of Trello

Traditionally, lists are divided into “what’s in progress”, “what’s done”, “what needs to be done” stages, but you can name them in your own way and create additional sections.

Changes in projects are visible in real time, it is possible to control which user views tasks.

Cards and comments can be created by e-mail. Trello downloads attachments from mail to the application, you can work without opening the program.

Additional features(powerups) allow you to vote for cards, connect other services (Evernote, Google, Dropbox and others), see "aging" cards that have not been worked on for a long time, set a countdown for deadlines.

Companies that use Trello: Adobe, Pixar, Google.

Available for iOS and Android.

The basic version for up to 5 users is free, the minimum paid account is $9 per month.

Benefits of Podio

Convenient CRM system - allows you to maintain profiles of existing and potential customers, save information about documents on transactions and their implementation.

Database of documents - templates for presentations, contracts, links to videos and other materials. They can be searched by filters and shared with internal and external users.

The work and financial results of each group can be monitored by "live" performance graphs.

There is integration with Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote and other services and dozens of extensions: for creating Gantt charts, time tracking and more. An open API for connecting Podio to other instruments.

Volvo, Sony, Sotheby's, NFL.

There is a time tracking and reporting system. The service is suitable for large companies.

In September 2018, Bitrix24 launched a major update. Among the new products are system management using the voice assistants of Yandex, Google, Amazon and Apple, forecasts for converting customer acquisition into a deal, and special chats for quick discussion of deals.

There are apps for iOS and Android.

The basic version for up to 12 users and up to 5 GB in the cloud is free, the minimum paid version is $39 per month (but more than twice cheaper in rubles — ₽990 per month).

Advantages of Bitrix24

Multifunctionality - you can both create reports for managers and add photos from corporate events.

It can be used as a CRM system, analyze customer acquisition channels, and since November 2018 track the performance of managers.

It works on the principle of a social network, gives colleagues the opportunity to communicate - in chats and since November 2018 in video calls.

Synchronized with 1C, you can connect the product catalog from Instagram to CRM and work with orders from there, quickly create mailing lists, sms and calls with product offers.

Companies that use Bitrix24: Xerox, Samsung, Volkswagen.

Jira allows you to assign project owners and track the progress of tasks in real time. Jira has an intuitive interface. The peculiarity of the platform is in the special names of the key elements of the processes. Epics here are a large amount of work, which is divided into tasks, and stories are small tasks.

Available for iOS and Android.

There is no free version, but there is a trial access for 7 days. Access for a team of up to 10 users costs $10 per month, for 11-100 people - $7 per month.

Benefits of Jira

Choosing a board template - Scrum or Kanban - depending on the tasks, experience of flexible work and the rigidity of project personnel management.
You can conduct Agile planning and make transparent reporting; track the status of releases and prioritize.

You can import data from Asana, Trello, MS Project and connect other services from the application collection.

You can work in the cloud, or you can use it on your own server - this is convenient if the project is large and important, but you cannot rely on the power of other people's servers.

Companies that use: Square, eBay, Spotify, Sisco.

Users can create group and personal chats, conversations for individual projects, share files. Skype for Business is used for calls. By the end of 2018, Microsoft Teams will introduce an important feature - the background will be blurred during video conferences. This is extremely convenient for those who are in a crowded place.

Available for iOS and Android.

The basic version with minimal functionality is free, the minimum paid version is $5 per month per user with annual payment.

Benefits of Microsoft Teams

Convenient for Office 365 users - connects to all programs of this service. But everyone can use Teams for free.

Tasks are distributed through the integrated Planner; you can schedule shifts and change them in real time; You can work with documents in the application.

You can connect Asana, Trello, another task scheduler or application.

Companies that use Teams: Microsoft, Deloitte, ConocoPhillips.

Employees communicate individually or in groups, exchange files and links. For different topics there are separate channels, when sending links you can see a preview.

There are apps for Android and iOS.

The basic version (integration with 10 services, history of 10 thousand messages) is free. The minimum paid is $6.67 per month per user.

Advantages of Slack

You can create multiple chats and turn off notifications for all or some of them. You can make voice and video calls, share the work screen during them.

When you receive attachments, including images and PDFs, you can customize the preview. And also - the ability to save Google documents on your Google drive.

Companies that use Slack: AirBnb, LinkedIn, Samsung, LABA.

Sergey Kulikov, Strategic Marketing Director www.book24.ru, Eksmo Group:

The Book24 online bookstore is a young project, and at the start we used email services to exchange information, and stored the data in Google Docs. But when it was necessary to quickly resolve an issue or bring new employees up to date, these tools were not enough.

This year we started using Slack - it has become our main medium for communication, storing knowledge and information about changes.

Here you can systematize the exchange of views on projects, connect Google Docs and our other system for managing company projects - Redmine.

The only difficulty was that not all employees were morally ready to change the usual communication environment for the optimal one. But this is normal and heals with time.

I would advise Slack to startups - when you need to see all the processes, but in principle there are not very many documents and data. Large companies for fear of losing data, they simply won’t be able to use it - if some kind of failure occurs, it will be impossible to restore the database.

This tool helps to understand how much time the team spends on tasks - and this is very important in order to conduct internal analysis of business processes. You can keep a temporary record of your own and collective projects, switching between them.

It is possible to connect different billing for different tasks.

App control with Siri - You can give your iPhone a voice command to open the app and stop the timer, and the action is synchronized with the program on your computer.

Inna Makoterskaya, specialist in project and operational management, co-founder of I + J consulting:

Toggle is a time tracking system that allows you to analyze your working time. In other words, understand how much time you spend on.

At the selfmanagement level, I can analyze the efficiency of my own working time distribution and adjust it.

At the company level, toggle gave me the opportunity financial analysis projects and team performance. The data collected over several years allowed me to create a logical and transparent pricing system.

The system itself is extremely simple: task - project - start / finish. But this simplicity makes it possible to customize your own architecture for collecting data.

Toggle is an invaluable treasure trove of information for further analysis, development, and decision making. If you, like me, are close to the growth mindset culture, toggle will help you.

Conveniently, toggle can be integrated into a project management system - Basecamp, Asana, Podio and others - and thereby automate data collection. Benefits of Confluence

Companies that use: NASA, Lufthansa Systems, Twilio, Illumina, Netflix.

Perhaps a significant part of your work and projects is done online. But it can be difficult for you and your boss to prioritize tasks according to their importance.

Hence the need for managers to use various online collaboration applications. Moreover, this is when they have to resort to the help of job management tools.

Online collaboration tools help your managers, your team, and yourself stay up to date on project progress, which can change and you may not always be able to keep track of.

If there are a lot of project management instructions, if they are updated and corrected, like the project itself, then all these updates are immediately displayed in the control panel. Here is an overview of 10 collaboration apps that you can use as a project manager.

1. Taking notes: Producteev

Free service

Do you need to track the progress of tasks, and at the same time “gather in a circle” your team members? Try Producteev in action. Producteev is a social task management platform that allows you to notify several people at once about important aspects of performing current tasks. Producteev allows you to manage as many projects as you like, and provide details and progress updates to as many groups and individuals as you choose to list.

2. Virtual work environment: Podio

Service free of charge for up to 5 employees

Social media collaboration tools like Podio allow you to create a “corner” on your online platform to connect with your employees. Share working materials with those who are allowed access to them. Discuss business and not only with members of your team here, as in a regular office, with the only difference being that it operates online. Optimum service for numerous work teams.

3. Conference session: Conceptboard

Service free for up to 25 users

Conceptboard is an easy-to-use centralized live messaging platform that allows you to share information with a team of employees by posting it to a shared whiteboard. Live chat sessions open up areas of the board currently being viewed by others to all conference participants. The optimal service for virtual managers and team members who cannot attend work meetings or conferences in person.

4. Selective Teamwork: Basecamp

A service free for teachers and students developing educational projects

Basecamp gives the user the ability to choose which of the team members to open access to view the details of specific projects, and to whom to close. A convenient way for everyone to coordinate the progress of projects through file access control, an invitation to participate in extended discussions, and many other tricks. Basecamp is the best application for managers who want to hide certain information and files from certain employees and provide selective access to them.

5. Multitasking: Binfire

Service free for up to 3 users

The Binfire service is very similar to Producteev, with the only difference being that Binfire's own applications also come with a shared interactive whiteboard for live data sharing and a calendar. Binfire brings you the convenience of multitasking in one place. Binfire maintains social network activity indicators by increasing the intensity of professional contacts online on a personal level, provides you with the opportunity to use other services of a creative and practical orientation.

6. Ease of use: Google Apps for enterprises

Service free to use for 30 days

Google Apps is probably one of the most used by you and your manager. Its ease of use allows even small teams to use it without any difficulties. Google Apps allows you to store files, share them, design project sites and templates. The service gives you the opportunity to share projects generated by you and your team for professional and personal purposes.

7. Issue Tracking: Goplan

30 days free trial

Goplan allows you not only to plan the progress of projects, organize tasks and files in one place, but also track problems that arise when using your account, generate requests for their elimination. The best service for teams using collaboration management tools. The application provides quick processing of customer requests through the system of sending requests, thereby increasing the level of service - and when the client is satisfied, he does not leave you. Goplan also allows your managers to track the history of customer complaints that your team has had to resolve.

8. Real time control: Glip

The service is free, but limited to 10,000 messages per person

Glip, at its core, is a modern service business communication, whose capabilities are extended by built-in functions. It not only provides ease of interaction, but also easily fits into the structure of resources. The application is convenient for content management, marketing projects and team workload distribution, but its main feature is its reliability and ease of use. Glip's standout features also include a compact Notes shared documentation editor, plus the ability to contribute to projects with an unlimited number of collaborators and invited users.

9. Business expansion: Worketc

If you are a small business owner but want to take things to the next level, then you should consider using Worketc. The service provides a preview of the conditions for transferring a business from the category of small to medium and large. It contains a platform for project management and interaction with clients, supports a system for issuing invoices and processing sales. Support for the invoicing and sales processing system gives your managers and employees the ability to easily use additional customizable tools to promote content in the market.

10. Crown of business: ProWork Flow

14 days free

Using basic social media marketing services is sometimes not enough to successfully distribute the workload within your team. If you have a large team under your supervision and the amount of work you have is also large, then ProWork Flow with its new generation functionality will come in handy. The application will help you track the progress and update the data of several projects of several employees at once - simultaneously and in one place. Other features of the service include displaying the team's workload for easy viewing in the dashboard, as well as a timeline and timesheet that make time tracking a breeze.