Introduction

As we forced ourselves to move our work indoors for the pandemic, the concept of work from home is more intensively faced by companies around the world. Initially, there was a lot of conjecture on how smoothly this process could run. Company managers thought about how they would be able to connect and meet client requirements. Team members wondered how they would connect with others for updates on work. The search for remote communication applications heightened.

In this blog, readers will have a good knowledge of such apps that can help people.

Apps for Team Communication

In the case of remote working, team members have to remain connected for regular updates in work. The regular email app is still there, but it is a very formal method of communication. Also, it becomes very difficult to communicate with multiple team members at the same time using an email app. It becomes difficult to follow the conversation.

SLACK

To make it easy, teams can download the SLACK application for collaborating teams. Let us learn more about SLACK.

SLACK is a chat platform for teams working together in an organisation. It’s very popular and used as a team communication tool. Slack has video conferencing, data sharing, and perfectly integrates with other remote working software like Google Calendar etc. It is a simple, formal, real-time conversation application to talk in groups or have a one-on-one discussion.

The best part of SLACK is engaging a bot for scheduling all our meeting. These days we can use manpower to devote time to do it and can simply ask a robot to do the task. This helps the meeting details to be shared among teammates in their calendars in a jiffy. Team members can also request a change in the meeting time in SLACK using the same bot.

Google Hangouts

There cannot be an IT solution without Google in it. After all, this tech giant company can provide platforms for all kinds. So when it comes to meeting and collaborating with teams on a virtual process, Google Hangouts comes to use.

Google Hangout has options for chat, video calls, audio calls, etc. Recently, with the upgrade to Hangouts meet, teams can pay to utilize the video conferencing feature of Hangout for their office use.

This software is a member of the G Suite. Hangouts Meet is not other than the video chat service provided by Hangouts for normal users. But in this case, it supports plenty of participants. To try this application, users can download it from meet.google.com.

Apart from instant audio, visual of the person you are calling, meet supports a few extra features like real-time captions and allows no less than 250 associates in a video conference including 100,000 active stream spectators.

Users with G-Suite users can click on meet.google.com straight away to start a meeting. They can also reserve a time for a meeting well in advance using Hangouts Chat or Google Calendar.

Some additional benefits of using meet include the option to turn off the webcam, mute the mic, and share your screen with your viewers. In the participant cell, you can see all the participants present. Similar to Hangouts, the video of the speaker will display on the main screen.

Software For Meetings and Presentations

Microsoft Teams

If Google Hangouts Meet is one trustworthy application, Microsoft Teams is no less. Meetings with Microsoft Teams have a plethora of possibilities. Let us unfold the details.

Meetings in MS Teams include sharing screen while sharing audio and video. This way the manager or team leads can have an overview of the work that other team members are doing. It helps to produce the performance in one screen and share it among others.

Screensharing, along with a secure platform such as MS Teams, is useful to collaborate in teamwork. Microsoft Teams is a handy application for a meeting if an organisation does not have a virtual meeting room of its own. Anyone can create an account in Teams. One can also join a Teams meeting by accepting the invitation to join the meeting.

Sharing content using MS Teams is easy making it a reliable choice for Presentations. Simply tapping the share button the screen or media can be shared between the people onboard the meeting.

If you want to share your presentation file to a board of team members then this is the most secure app to do so. This app can be accessed from laptops as well as smartphones.

WebEx Meetings

Another simple collaboration tool to keep you in touch with your office anytime, anywhere is Webex Teams. It is an app that combines messaging, file sharing, video conferencing, whiteboarding noting, calling, and other means of communication tools to streamline teamwork and produce better results.

Webex Teams app helps you to formulate a reliable and protected virtual workspace. This secured workspace service can be used for completing short-term projects, conduct meetings and sessions, and solve longer-term business needs.

WebEx makes distance just a digit for units operating across different locations. Team segments can employ the aforementioned app to interact with themselves. Communications can take place over a secure, encrypted line via video calling, audio bridge, instant messages and file sharing. Many additional features can be embedded with third-party app integrations towards a smoother workflow.

Benefits of WebEx include improved potency and commitment to work with live communications. Calls in WebEx meetings have high-quality both in audio and video and do not lag. Screen-sharing is simple with the click of an option and stays connected for hours.

Apart from calls and video, there is a whiteboard where colleagues can jot down notes and enlighten the team with their thoughts at any given time. WebEx also features a meeting where you can conduct a proper virtual meeting with your team. The screen can also be projected using a cisco Webex device wirelessly. Splitting your display with others, taking shots of whiteboard drawings are some features unique to this software.

Common Applications for Remote Communication:

The above were a few heavy-duty apps for proper meeting facility in work from home offices. But sometimes we need some on the go apps to remain connected. There are some times when we need a mobile application to remain connected even when we are not close to our computer.

Some mobile apps for remote communication, that we cannot do without during work from home are as follows. Most of these apps are cross-platform to help customers stay connected across the whole world.

Yammer

This app is a replica of Facebook but entirely meant for business purposes. With this messaging service, it is easy to broadcast a message to large groups and get quick work updates.

Tools For Collaborative Work

New tools for collaborative work are being deployed every day. Several such tools have made their sudden appearance in the digital business world.

Trello

Trello is a cross-platform application that helps to manage projects and to-do lists. Using this tool, teams can reflect their projects and assigned tasks. Users can customize the cards based on completion, in progress, ready to start, and done.

Throughflow

This application is exclusively for Apple users who prefer working visually. This tool lets you create and add project notes so there’s no ambiguity about the style and approach to a client requirement.

Tools to Manage Projects

WorkflowMax

WorkflowMax is an integrated project management software available for iOS. Apart from allowing managers visibility of jobs from end to end, it helps to get an update of work track at a simple click. Users can inspect and complete tasks, and finish goals they proceed. The app syncs the info with the desktop app and provides universal connectivity.

Tools to Get Inspired

There are several ways in which you can inspire your team members. Some tools can bridge the distance between team members who are working from home during the pandemic. A brief description of them is as follows.

Feedly

This tool is available for both iOS and Android users. It is an RSS reader application where users can subscribe to blogposts of their favourite articles. The articles on such topics when made public through websites are posted in that app. In this way, you can free your inbox from unnecessary blogposts. Focus only in Feedly for blogs and use email for official purposes.

Pocket

Imagine if you can revisit articles, videos, and webpages that you have liked during a web browse. Bookmarks are an infinite array of folders and subfolders, often difficult to organise. By downloading Pocket, we can easily save and label the pages and posts that we like. It can be integrated with other apps so that you can share your reads with your friends and colleagues.

Final Word

The world has witnessed a change in 2020 and this change will make work from home the new normal. There are several apps and software that can make this new working method a smooth journey for all of us. This blog will be an enlightening read for those people who are yet to start this new chapter in their work-life.

Author Bio:

Name: Jainish Vora

Bio: Jainish Vora is Author at Phoneier. Having experience with 5 years of writing about phones and other gadgets. He loves to explore and write different gadgets from android phones to wearable gadgets.

By Chakraborty

Dr Chakrabarty is the Chief Innovation Officer of IntuiComp TeraScience. Earlier she was Assistant Professor of Delhi University, a QS ranked university in India. Before that she has held research positions in IIT Mumbai, IIT Chennai and IISc Bangalore. She holds 2 patents and over 20 research publications in her name which are highly cited. Her area of research is in smart technologies, integrated devices and communications. She also has a penchant for blogging and is an editor of Business Fundas.