What are the types of collaboration software?
The types of collaboration software are communication, conferencing, and coordination. In addition to these, there are two dimensions of operation when it comes to collaboration software–asynchronous/non-real-time and synchronous/real-time.
As most workplaces everywhere have embraced remote work due to COVID-19, companies have increasingly deployed relevant technologies to enable this work setup. One such software solution is collaboration software. Also known as groupware, this tool is a technology designed to facilitate and handle group work. The collaboration software may be used by groups to communicate, coordinate, share, cooperate, solve problems, negotiate, or even compete.
This article aims to inform you about the categorization that governs this type of tool. The divisions themselves are grouped into subsections. This way, you can find out more easily which type of collaboration software to look for, depending on your business’s circumstances and requirements.
- Communication
- Conferencing
- Coordination
- Asynchronous or non-real-time
- Synchronous or real-time
Collaboration software technologies are generally categorized along two main dimensions:
- Users are working or doing tasks together at the same time [known as “real-time” or “synchronous” collaboration software] or at different times [known as “asynchronous” collaboration software].
- Users are doing work together in one place [also known as “collocated” or “face-to-face”] or in various places [known as “non-colocated” or “distance”].
Right now, while there’s a lot of new tools that companies can choose from, email still tends to linger in the mix of collaboration space. However, apps that are built specially to enhance communication, coordination, and sharing among stakeholders are among the most in-demand nowadays.
In fact, by the end of March 2020, American workplaces witnessed a 100% upsurge in the number of enterprise solutions that feature collaboration tools compared to before the pandemic began. By May 2020, such an increase further grew to 176%. And this dramatic surge in remote work and collaboration platforms were dominated by these apps:
Small business and collaboration tools
With or without a global health crisis, here are some of the most important reasons why you should consider using collaboration software for your small business:
- To make communication easier, clearer and more persuasive, and productive
- To allow communication at times and in places, which otherwise would be impossible
- To allow for telecommuting
- To minimize, if not eliminate travel costs
- To allow various perspectives and expertise in one discussion
- To create groups that have common interests where it would be hard or impossible to assemble enough people face-to-face
- To cut downtime and cost in facilitating group work
- To coordinate group problem-solving
- To allow new modes of communication, including anonymous interchanges or structured interactions
The last one is particularly valuable since an effective communications system increases the retention rate of best talents by 450%.
Types of Collaboration Software
1. Communication
Early collaboration software applications like Lotus Notes are more focused on communications. Other platforms include instant messaging or chat.
2. Conferencing
Groupware software tools consist of a real-time collaboration of project members who are presented with a unified view screen. In most cases, one presenter controls the view screen, while others provide their inputs by talking or chatting.
3. Coordination
The most recent collaborative software type and the one with the highest growth potential today, coordination software solutions help you manage complex or big interdependent tasks with a common goal.
Two Dimensions of Collaboration Software
Generally, there are two main types of collaboration software solutions, at least if we base the division on different dimensions of operation.
1. Asynchronous or non-real time collaboration software
Email is the most common collaboration tool out there. Email is regarded as the grandfather of today’s collaboration software applications, but it is still the most commonly used collaboration program. Today’s email, in comparison with its older features, includes intuitive algorithms for forwarding or filing messages, creating mailing groups, or attaching dozens of files with a single message. What is also sophisticated about today’s email technology is that it could automatically sort and process messages or route messages online, among others.
Mailing lists and newsgroups are very similar to email systems, but the main difference is they are messages to groups of people instead of just one-to-one communication.
Workflow systems, on the other hand, allow files or documents to be routed through groups or organizations using a relatively-fixed process. Workflow systems can provide interesting features, including routing, development of various forms, and support for roles and privileges.
Group calendars allow you to schedule and manage projects, coordinate people, and help you schedule deliverables or deadlines. Typical features of a group calendar include the detection of conflicting schedules and coordination of meeting schedules that can work for everyone. Group calendars can help you to locate people, too.
2. Synchronous or real-time collaboration software
Real-time or synchronous collaboration software programs allow two or more people to view and edit documents or information even if they are from different areas. Shared whiteboards, for instance, allow people to work collaboratively on a problem on a web-based platform. Many shared whiteboards are used for informal discussions, but these tools may also serve communications that are structured or more sophisticated, including collaborative graphic design, engineering, or publishing applications.
Video communications systems, on the other hand, allow two-way or even multi-way calling using live video, basically, a telephone system that has an additional visual component. An example of this would be Skype, which you can easily use for free.
Chat systems permit various people to write and send messages in real-time. Chat groups are typically created by assigning chat rooms using name, number of people, location, and the topic of discussion, among others.
Decision support systems are designed to help groups manage the decision-making process. They allow the use of tools for brainstorming, analyzing ideas, putting weights, as well as probabilities on events or alternatives, and even voting.
Furthermore, you can look at collaborative software categories in terms of open-source and paid software. If you have coding skills, this article explains how open source collaboration software can be a smart move for you.
If you want to learn more about collaboration software, TMCNews further explains the concept behind it and its associated work process. Likewise, PBWorks talks about a short history of these collaborative software applications. And if you have a small business and you want to try and use some of today’s outstanding collaboration software applications, PCWorld gives a list of free collaboration software tools that you may find useful.
What’s the Best Collaboration Software?
monday.com, previously named Dapulse, is one of the leading collaboration and communication solutions on the market. This is thanks to its seamless way of centralizing communication and keeping everyone engaged in what matters to the organization.
This platform stands out from other collaboration software because of how it’s designed to provide tools that support both individual and team efforts. For instance, it features a customizable workflow to accommodate the different needs of different teams at different times. This makes unforeseen circumstances more manageable. It’s also easy for users or their team leaders to track their current project’s progress regardless of what type it is. This is due to the different types of views that monday.com offers, including calendar, files, timeline, map, etc.
If you’d like to test how monday.com can improve the efficiency of your collaboration, you should give their free trial a go.
monday.com
Try out monday.com with their free trial
Overview of monday.com Collaboration Benefits
- Expanded @mention tool. Typing @someone has been a popular way of getting a specific person or team’s attention, but now monday.com has also made it possible to mention @everyone to summon the attention of everyone who is subscribed to a board. On a shareable board, you get the equivalent @all guests, so all guests get involved too, at once. It’s a very convenient way to communicate with people involved in any project or task.
- Limit editing permissions to board only. While collaborative editing is truly a blessing of the internet-and-algorithm-driven times, there are still those moments when we come to harbor deep misgivings about it: think about the times when some malware coursed down your internet connection and made a jolly mayhem of your local hard drives or when a colleague made a complete mess of your boards. Life ain’t fair, but now you could do something about it: click on “Edit content” permissions mode and voila, your teammates couldn’t do anything else but edit only pulses where their contributions are needed.
- Effective communication right at the heart of things. Who hasn’t had those dragging meetings and painfully obfuscating email threads just to sort out even the simplest of things? Well, say goodbye to them all and welcome the focused exchange of ideas and quick approval of just-concluded tasks right where you do things, in the case of monday.com, your pulses—entire rows within your board. Here’s where your current tasks reside, you get to share whatever matters with the people who are rightfully involved and assigned with you. If tasks get changed and updated and they’re not presently aware, they’ll get wind of them soon enough through desktop or mobile notifications. If you like a particular effort, thumb it up or say them in words. If files are needed, they get dropped in a centralized location where you don’t have to go treasure-hunting for them in your emails.
Detailed monday.com Review
- A collaboration tool for multiple employees
- A many-to-many communication tool
- A visual display of progress
- An Execution Board – with big screen display
- Easy collaboration: tag teams
- Easy communication: tag people
- Eliminate noise: get updates based on relevance
- Email notifications
- Email updates
- Integrations: Dropbox, Google Drive, Pipedrive
- Knowledge base
- Motivational tool
- New employees can hit the ground running
- Personal and public Boards
- You can copy and paste from Adobe
- You can leave live comments on visuals
- Zero emails and meetings overhead
Other Examples of Collaboration Software
1. Wrike
If you are a company that has fewer tasks or you have projects that require longer times to complete, you will be happy to learn that Wrike is more user-friendly, compared to other solutions that prefer breaking tasks up into parts. You can learn more about the numerous advantages of this software from our Wrike reviews section.
Wrike
ConnectWise Control is a remote support software ideal for organizations looking to improve collaboration within technical assistance teams. Industry-leading companies such as Dell, Intel, Swarovski, and Bic use ConnectWise Control for their remote support processes. You can try out the platform’s various features by signing up for a free trial.
ConnectWise Control
Smartsheet is a cloud-based software as a service collaboration solution that can be used by companies of all sizes. It was developed by Smartsheet Inc. and first released in 2006. If you want to check out the features, just sign up for a free trial.
Smartsheet
Zoho Projects is a cloud-based project management and collaboration application recognized by users ranging from Fortune 500 companies, SMBs, to freelancers. If you’d like to test its features, you can quickly do so when you sign up for a Zoho Projects free trial.
Zoho Projects
ProjectManager is a cloud-based project management solution that brings powerful scheduling and project planning, plus collaboration tools for small and large teams. Officially launched in 2010, the platform has already acquired the trust of many companies around the world in a short period. You can check out the app’s features for free.
Overview of ProjectManager Collaboration Benefits
- Built for project management and team collaboration. The platform provides almost everything you may need to work with a team more efficiently and manage your project successfully. You can communicate with your team online or by mobile. It’s pretty beneficial for organizations with employees located from around the world. The platform also comes with all the tools you need to manage your projects from the planning stage to completion.
- Extensive integrations. ProjectManager’s extensive integration can improve your team collaboration further. You can integrate the software with more than a thousand business apps, including the most popular solutions such as MS Office, Dropbox, Slack, Salesforce, Google Apps, and more.
- Real-time dashboards. The platform provides you with a dashboard where you can view all project=related information in real-time. The project dashboard can be printed. You can use it in meetings or simply send a link to your team members so everyone will remain updated on the status of the project and their tasks.
Detailed ProjectManager Review
- Online file storage
- API
- Create projects online
- Google & Gmail integration
- Project groups
- Team workload management
- Real-time dashboards
- Timesheets
- Chats & discussions
6. Clarizen
Clarizen is a cloud-based software-as-a-service collaborative work management software offering a wide range of solutions for small, medium, and large enterprises. It was developed by Clarizen, Inc., a privately held company founded in 2006 with headquarters located in San Mateo, California, US.
Overview of Clarizen Collaboration Benefits
- Centralized dashboard. Clarizen brings all your project-related work together in one place, making it easier to manage your tasks and staff. You can review your whole workplace, determine who is working on what, adjust priorities, timelines, assignees, and more from one screen.
- Easy access to real-time data. Clarizen allows users to invite as many guests as they like to view content, comment, and even ask questions. This way, it can be guaranteed that everyone involved in the project, including your team members, partners, vendors, and even customers, remain updated on the project’s progress without compromising your company’s security.
- Public APIs. With Clarizen’s public APIs, users do not have to abandon their existing business applications. They can easily and seamlessly integrate the software with the tools that their organizations are currently using.
- Collaborative Planning
- Workforce Management
- File Sharing
- Templates
- Project Percentage Completion Reporting
- Project Portfolio Management
- Issue Tracking
- Multi-currency
- Role & Assignment Per Project
- Document Sharing
7. Jira
If you have a software development team or are thinking about creating one, then you should consider Jira. This capable solution lets you streamline your app development cycle. The platform is designed to help agile software teams plan, track, and develop high-quality software.
With its powerful tools, you can customize your workflows, schemes, and permissions to suit the way your team works. Besides, Jira supports your efforts no matter if you use kanban, Scrum, or other methodologies. This allows you to work on projects collaboratively to deliver great apps. The vendor offers a comprehensive free trial to get you up to speed with the features.
Overview of Jira Collaboration Benefits:
- Supports multiple project methodologies: Primarily, Jira deals with agile project management, blending both Scrum and kanban methodology to help teams achieve the end goal. The solution offers multiple out-of-the-box workflows built to match multiple processes that teams take to deliver great software. Also, it’s extremely configurable, which means team managers can come up with unique project workflows tailored to support the way their teams work.
- Innovative Jira scrum board: The Jira scrum board is a powerful tool designed to bring teams together around a single goal. The board promotes team collaboration, nudging the active engagement of each member to promote incremental delivery. In addition, it gives every team member a 360-degree view of the processes they’re involved in. Moreover, it offers team managers a visual display of the progress they are making to keep the development cycle rolling.
- Seamless integrations: Jira integrates seamlessly with thousands of the apps your teams use. Whether these are time tracking, project management, test management, or design tools, the Atlassian Marketplace has what you need to extend Jira’s capabilities. The best part is that many of the apps you’ll find on the marketplace are free and easy to setup.
- Project management
- Task management
- Document management
- Content management
- Real-time editing
- Discussion boards
- Calendar
- Version control
- Brainstorm
8. Trello
Trello is a simple and flexible collaboration software that works best for teams in small and medium-sized businesses. The platform allows teams to work collaboratively and get projects done faster. It allows you to keep a keen eye on project progress, from the big picture to the delicate task details.
With easy-to-use lists boards and cards, Trello enables you to organize and prioritize your to-do list or side project. Besides, with some workaround, you can create a comprehensive Kanban system to manage complex tasks. The vendor has an appealing free trial where you can tinker with the features at no cost.
Overview of Trello Collaboration Benefits
- Easy project management: Trello is built from the ground up with multiple features that simplify project management. First, its homepage functions as a central information hub, displaying all the information you need to remain on top of every project. Second, the platform allows you to organize projects in simple boards, made up of lists with color-coded cards. The list can be created to represent the various stages of your project or workflow.
- Use the cards to represents project tasks. Creating cards takes a single click of a button. Even better, you can easily drag and drop cards across the different workflow stages to indicate progression.
- Effective collaboration: What’s more, Trello is designed to enhance team collaboration. Its true Kanban-style cards allow team members to access task details with ease. In fact, with a single click of a button, members can see attached files, task descriptions, and the subtasks. Also, Trello allows you to communicate with your teams right inside each card. You leave comments on cards and even @mention members to draw their attention to a specific task.
- Trello Power-Ups: Trello features are designed to be somewhat basic, hence may not be apt enough for teams managing complex projects. The solution, however, provides a number of powerups or integrations, especially if you are on the premium plan. The power-ups allow you to leverage more advanced features that are not part of the core Trello’s system. Whether it’s time tracking, document management, or Gantt Charts, you’ll be at liberty to integrate them with Trello.
- Project management
- Drag-and-drop editing
- Labeling, comments, and tags
- Cards
- Document management
- Notifications and alerts
- Activity log
- Discussion
9. Flock
Collaboration software Flock helps distributed teams work together to boost their productivity. The platform provides businesses with a more efficient channel for communication. As a result, the improved workflow boosts overall team productivity and business efficiency.
Through Flock, teams can exchange not only messages but also files, links, and other information. Smart admin options and advanced encryption features also provide security for messages and files.
Flock
By James Anthony
A senior FinancesOnline writer on SaaS and B2B topics, James Anthony passion is keeping abreast of the industry’s cutting-edge practices [other than writing personal blog posts on why Firefly needs to be renewed]. He has written extensively on these two subjects, being a firm believer in SaaS to PaaS migration and how this inevitable transition would impact economies of scale. With reviews and analyses spanning a breadth of topics from software to learning models, James is one of FinancesOnline’s most creative resources on and off the office.