Best Collaboration Tools in 2024

Every business is different and each team has its own way of doing things. This makes it essential that you consider your unique business needs while selecting suitable online collaboration tools. This buyer’s guide aims to help you out by providing a comprehensive list of factors to consider when buying the best collaboration tools for enterprises and SMBs.

Start by analyzing how your team works. Does it handle structured work with standardized workflows or is the work unstructured with ad hoc tasks and assignments? Understand how your team works and then define goals for what needs to be improved. Be clear about what you want the collaboration tools to do for your team.

Your employees need to be convinced about the benefits of using top collaboration tools. Software usage is primarily driven by the motivation level of individual employees. The proper use of file sharing, instant messaging, and social tools for business can help to enhance collaboration and boost productivity. Therefore, team buy-in and employee engagement are important when you invest in new collaboration programs.

Do not get taken in by the features advertised by a vendor. You can judge a software’s ease-of-use, simplicity, and performance only by trying it out.  To help, most collaboration tools providers offer a free trial plan or demo that gives you enough time to use the product and do a comparison before you decide whether to upgrade it to a premium plan but you still won’t know which is the best collaboration tools for your business. Get feedback from your company’s users on the strengths and drawbacks of the software before making your purchase decision. You can start by registering for the free trials of the following apps, which have received the highest SmartScore rankings and Customer Satisfaction Rating in our collaboration tools reviews: Wrike reviews, eXo Platform, Mavenlink, Samepage, Zoho Projects, and Proworkflow.

• Small businesses use collaboration tools for increased efficiency and productivity.
• Medium-sized and growing companies use the tools for better teamwork.
• Large multinational enterprises make use of the software to support fast international growth.
• Consultants and freelancers use collaboration tools to coordinate tasks and projects with partners and clients.

Wrike: Wrike offers flexibility to allow multifunctional groups to collaborate and get things done effectively in one place.

Trello: Trello is a collaboration tool that enables your team members to discuss project details in real-time.

eXo Platform: eXo Platform is a high-quality, open-source social networking application for small business and large companies that is also designed as a smart collaboration tool.

Mavenlink: Mavenlink is a robust online project management app that offers financial, collaboration, and resource planning tools.

Samepage: Samepage is a single platform that enables team collaboration through features, such as task lists, conversations, instant messages, files, meeting agendas, discussion topics, and scheduling.

There are two types of collaboration tools:

• On-Premise software
• Cloud Software

The following factors can help you decide between cloud or on-premise software:

• If your budget is flexible, go for cloud, while on-premise assures cost certainty.
• Cloud software is simple and fast to set up and use, while on-premise needs time to download and set up.
• If you have to meet strict data audit requirements, some cloud vendors may not be suitable.
• All you need to use cloud software is internet access, but for on-premise systems, you need to ensure your IT department can provide the hardware, bandwidth, data backup, etc.
• Be assured that most vendors make it easy to move from on-premise to cloud and vice versa if you wish to change.

• Project management – This feature helps you to track and manage a large number of complex projects.
• Contact management – The ability to tag and maintain contact details related to ongoing projects.
• Synchronous chat – Real-time chat that can be used by multiple participants and the conversations can be stored for future reference.
• Video conferencing – The value of the collaboration tool increases if it offers an integrated video conferencing feature.
• Sharable whiteboard – Whiteboards are useful for teams to express ideas visually in synchronous work sessions.
• File versioning – Your team may edit and re-edit important files. File versioning helps you track multiple versions of a file so that you can reclaim a previous version if something goes wrong.
• Secure Communications – Rest assured that your files and conversations are safe with top-rank security measures. Never lose or get files corrupted. Keep your sensitive information safe.

Onboarding and Training are Important: It is important to ensure robust employee engagement for successful adoption of collaboration tools. Talk to the vendor about their onboarding and training facilities. They should offer quick start guides, video tutorials, FAQs, and other resources to help your employees get adequate training to use the software effectively.

Integrations with other Apps: The collaboration tools should be able to smoothly integrate with the other business systems and apps you use. This can save you lots of time and improve productivity. The software should be able to integrate with file sharing platforms like Google Drive and Dropbox for easy uploading of files, assure sign-in integrations to help you sign in from social media accounts, integrate with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, to enable you to share content, and offer workflow integrations to create a customized workflow with the other tools you use, such as chat, development, meeting, task, time tracking, and calendar software. Look for an API that will allow you to integrate the collaboration tool with your own customized solution.

Day-to-Day Usage and Access: Consider the following factors that can impact the day-to-day usage of the collaboration tools:

• The vendor should offer mobile apps to enable your employees to get updates and work in the field.
• The software should provide recovery options to enable you to access previous versions of files in case something is accidentally deleted or edited.
• You should be able to control the level of permission for each user. This is important if you wish to provide different access and usage levels for each user.

Data Security is Essential: Cloud software vendors have improved their products a great deal of late. The best vendors offer top-rate security features, such as encryption key management (EKM), hybrid storage, and flexible deployment choices, including private cloud hosting and choice of data center locations. Select a provider that gives you control over the location where your data is stored, how it is configured, when it is upgraded, as well as custom branding.

Understand the Collaboration Ecosystem: Analyze the impact of introducing collaboration tools in your company. Consider the following vital areas:

• Pay attention to compliance regulations and security when choosing a vendor. Your client may require your data to meet compliance requirements, such as DOD, FINRA, SEC, HIPAA, etc. Make sure the vendor can help you meet these requirements.
• Centralized or decentralized collaboration – Centralized collaboration places all content in a central location where it can be accessed by all users, unless they are restricted. Decentralized collaboration occurs when only the author can access the content and he or she shares it with others by granting specific access to users.

Analyze the Pricing Model: Understand how a vendor’s pricing system works before you invest your money and time:

• You should be able to shift between different plans according to the changing requirements and size of your team.
• The pricing plans should clearly indicate the features offered and the cost incurred. This will help you to easily compare the advantages and drawbacks of different packages.

Collaboration management tools come in different common types of deployment. And, depending on your workflow and needs, you have to take these into consideration, especially their pros and cons. Here they are below:

On-Premise. This is the traditional deployment type where you install a tool on your machines. Usually, you download these from the official website. Then, you install them on your team’s computers.

The best thing about on-premise apps is that you can use them on LAN. You don’t need to connect to the world wide web. This, for some, is more secure. If you are working on a very secretive project, you don’t want copies of it lying around oi cyberspace.

Cloud-Based. Pure cloud-based platforms can only be accessed via their web portals. So, you need a good internet connection to collaborate with your team.

On the other hand, cloud-based platforms are best for large organizations with remote teams. These enable users to work together on tasks and projects even if they are geographically apart.

Hybrid. Many platforms offer both on-premise clients and web-based portals. Also, data from both channels sync.

The hybrid deployment type takes the best of both worlds. You can opt for secure LAN collaboration or you can leave secure copies on the cloud. You get to choose.

The cost or the price of popular collaboration tools usually depends on the pricing schemes and options offered by providers. Within these types of software, here are the most common pricing schemes available on the market:

• Free. There are often free versions of top applications. Some are just open-source and, therefore, free in essence. Also, check our FAQ section for the best free plans out there.
• Monthly Plan. Collaboration tools are being offered in monthly plans. These, though, are priced a little higher than yearly subscriptions. However, you can easily opt-out if you don’t like the service or the program anymore.
• Annual Plans. Software providers offer annual-based plans. These are usually cheaper and you just renew your subscription every year. This is best for those who are sure to continue to use a program in the long run.

Do not opt for collaboration tools simply because they offer great features. Decide whether you actually need all the features and whether you will be getting value for the money you are investing. Do informed comparisons and select tools that offer sufficient features for your business needs and are sure to boost your employees’ efficiency and productivity.