Thursday 5 November 2009

What collaboration tools do we use and recommend?

Choosing the right collaboration tool depends on what you're trying to do and who with. So, these are two separate questions: what's right for us isn't necessarily right for you.

In addition to Microsoft Outlook for email and personal productivity, we use a VHQ WebOffice for sharing company information, client file uploads & calendar sync, remote VA access, time recording and business management. We also use Microsoft Groove with several clients for managing projects, documents and IM, and we use WebEx WebMeeting for online training and fixing PC problems. All this is supported by VoIP telephony, either via our systems or using Skype with certain clients.

The problem for people starting out, who may only use these tools occasionally, is the cost. Whilst they're not expensive - for example WebOffice is £50 /mth for 5 Users and Groove is £120 per user licence - you can get a similar experience for free if you know where to look. For example:
There are lots of different collaboration tools around and many are absolutely free, if you look hard enough. The National B2B Centre has an online toolkit with a useful Guide to e-Collaboration that is designed to help you decided which tools are right for you - you'll need to register for free before you can access it.

We often advise clients on selecting collaboration tools, adopting effective collaborative working practices and whether its better to pay for a service or not - because free services do have their limitations. Read more about our IT Support Services for clients.

If you want to learn more about this subject, I made a series of short video clips about e-collaboration for The National B2B Centre and GuruOnline. Otherwise, comment on this Blog Post to ask me a question, or feel free to contact me directly.

For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk
Posted by Denis at 9:18 am