Are you facing trouble in making your teams work together on projects or in handling the general admin tasks? Well, you are not alone in the struggle. Gone are the days when it was expected for the employees to stay away from each other in the workplace. In today’s time, a strong relationship between employees is the new normal. This collaboration of employees with each other was promoted keeping in mind to improve efficiency as well as productivity. But the thing is that you can’t improve this collaboration of employees until you have the right tools in the first place.
Table of Contents
What is Collaboration Software?
Collaboration software is basically that tool which many businesses use with the aim to improve cooperation between their staff members. A collaboration software does so by offering a seamless means of communication between members and by handling their documents promptly. Another way in which collaboration software has proved to be a boon for the work environment is that they help in managing time in a more efficient way by encouraging interactive communication, thereby boosting overall productivity.
How to choose a good Collaboration Software?
No matter your position in the organizational hierarchy, every employee should be empowered to be able to speak to the right person to address their problem. The communication system should be clear, transparent, easy to understand, and simple to use. This is the only way to reduce misunderstanding, solve problems, maintain an efficient workflow, and boost overall work productivity. Since collaborative working is a common phenomenon practiced these days, the need for a good online collaborative tool has increased too. Good collaborative software should help you make your communication channel quicker, easier, and better.
To ease up your decision-making regarding good collaboration software, we have done the hard work and picked out some of the top collaboration software in 2021. Go through the key pointers, and choose the one which suits your organization the best!
Airtable: Seamless Workflow and Team Collaboration
It is a futuristic platform that can be used to generate collaborative apps. More than 200,000 teams connected to leading business houses across the globe trust Airtable, in particular, to stay connected and get their work done. Airtable also allows organizations to integrate the platform with their existing tools such as Dropbox, Facebook, GitHub, and more. Hence, automating the information movement back and forth.
What does Airtable do?
Airtable allows users to generate custom notifications, orchestrate work in a seamless manner, automate redundant tasks, share information across departments in real-time, and more. Information shared in the software is secured by ISO/IEC 27001 certification. Another interesting thing about the Airtable platform is that its users get access to 50+ prebuilt apps that can feed data.
What are the main features?
- Unlimited bases and up to 100,000 records per base
- Up to 1,000 GB of attachments and synced table per base
- Grid, calendar, form, and gallery views
- Up to 3-year revision and snapshot history
- Unlimited apps and unlimited workspaces per organization
- Personal and locked views
- Field and table editing permissions
- Dedicated success manager
What are the plans?
Free: No Cost
Plus: $10 per user/ month (billed yearly)
Pro: $20 per user/ month (billed yearly)
Enterprise: This plan follows a custom, quotation–based pricing model.
Is support available?
Yes, Airtable offers its users dedicated online support during business hours.
To what customer type do they cater?
- Freelancers
- Large Enterprises
- Medium Business
- Small Businesses
Workplace: A professional Collaboration Software by Facebook
It is a workplace collaboration software from Facebook. The main aim of this software to change the way the offices usually function. It promotes seamless communication between teammates, offers collaboration across projects, connects on desktop, mobile platforms, and more.
What does Workplace do?
This collaboration software comes with plenty of advanced features which can help in contacting and locating employees quickly and efficiently. It also sports a news feed that leverages AI to show posts from people and projects, users care about, thereby helping users to keep a close eye on any critical business development.
What are the main features?
- Group, chat, and video calls
- Instant messaging and broadcasting
- Unlimited teams and project groups
- Auto-translate and live video streaming
- Mobile apps and organization chart
- Tools for secure collaboration between companies
- Safety center, surveys, and APIs for bots
- Custom integration
- Insights, surveys
- Single sign-on and Admin controls
What are the plans?
Trial: Free
Advanced: $4 per user/ month
Enterprise: $8 per user/ month
Is Support Available?
Yes, Workplace provides dedicated 24/7 support access. There is a 24- hour initial response time and live chat support system as well.
To what customer type do they cater?
- Large Enterprises
- Medium Business
- Small Businesses
ClickUp: The Productivity Platform
Looking for a simple, cloud-based collaboration software? Well, this is a perfect choice. This collaboration and project management tool is created for all user types. It simplifies and streamlines all your processes such as sales, marketing, designs, and development.
What does ClickUp do?
ClickUp features an agile board view that allows you to monitor every task on your team on one board. Users can even view the task progress in the form of percentages. ClickUp also organizes your tasks in a hierarchal manner, allowing you to sort tasks according to priority. The machine learning capability of ClickUp assists projects managers to give realistic deadlines for projects.
What are the main features?
- Unlimited tasks, storage, integrations, and members
- Two-factor authentication
- Dashboards and calendar views
- Guests and permissions
- Goal, portfolios, and custom fields
- Custom exporting and all automation
- Mind maps and timeline views
- Advanced time tracking and permissions
- Training program and white labeling
- Custom onboarding and extra automation
What are the plans?
Free: No cost
Unlimited: $5 per user/ month (Billed Yearly)
Business: $9 per user/ month (Billed Yearly)
Enterprise: This plan follows a custom, quotation–based pricing model.
Is support available?
Yes, ClickUp provides dedicated online support during business hours with a 24/7 live representative to all of its users.
To what customer type do they cater?
- Freelancers
- Large Enterprises
- Medium Business
- Small Businesses
Nextcloud: Stand on-premise team collaboration
This is a productivity platform that allows users to share and collaborate documents, receive and send emails, have video chats, manage calendars, and much more, that too without any threats of a data leak. It uses technology that makes it convenient and easy for the customers to use the software.
What does Nextcloud do?
This collaboration software takes care of the security and privacy of the users and helps control their business needs as well. Users get on-premise universal file access along with a sync platform having robust collaboration capabilities on the web, desktop, and mobile. The software enhances productivity across any platform and helps to share, collaborate, and communicate across organizations’ boundaries.
What are the main features?
- Mobile and desktop clients
- Fully open-source
- Portal, migration, phone, and email support
- Early security and stability patches
- Branding and installation review
- Custom consulting and clustered instances
- Global scale
- Subscription extensions
What are the plans?
Basic: Starting at 100 users: €36 per user/ year
Standard: Starting at 100 users: €65 per user/ year
Premium: Starting at 100 users: €95.50 per user/ year
Is support available?
Yes, Nextcloud boasts superb support service. You can contact them via email, phone, and on the portal. There is a 24/7 live representative as well.
To what customer type do they cater?
- Individuals
- Freelancers
- Large Enterprises
- Medium Business
- Small Businesses
Lark: All in one Collaborative Platform for Modern Businesses
It is basically a remote working and video-conferencing application. This platform was basically created in order to help team members who are working at multiple locations to work efficiently. All of the software’s data is stored safely in the cloud and is available to users with just a single click. All in all, Lark works as a virtual office combining all the necessary collaborative tools.
What does Lark do?
Organizations use Lark to create beautiful and collaborative features. It tries to deliver the best results to the team by creating robust professional documents like official letters or contracts. The most distinguishing feature of this software is its next gen-language translator that can help you communicate in 100+ languages in real-time.
What are the main features?
- Unlimited video call and searchable messages
- Cloud and email storage
- Unlimited apps and multiple team admins
- Customizable workflows
- Dedicated Customer Success Manager
What are the plans?
Free: No Cost
Enterprise: This plan follows a custom, quotation–based pricing model.
Is support available?
With lark, you get online support during business hours with a 24/7 live representation. In the enterprise plan, users also get to enjoy 24*5 priority support.
To what customer type do they cater?
- Individuals
- Freelancers
- Large Enterprises
- Medium Business
- Small Businesses
Google Workspace: Automatic Workflows
Formerly also known by the name of G Suite, Google workspace is one of the top collaboration software that works as an integrated workspace for teams. The software possesses a smart algorithm and is capable of offering AI suggestions and a suite of other tools to help prioritize the team’s tasks.
What can Google Workspace Do?
As the name suggests, this software can help you collaborate with your team with enterprise-grade security. It also offers a series of compliance features to customize business needs. This software is trusted by a plethora of leading brands across the globe.
What are the main features?
- Custom and secure business email
- Video meetings and cloud storage
- Security and management controls
What are the plans?
Trial: Free
Business Starter: $6 per user/ month
Business Standard: $12 per user/ month
Business Plus: $18 per user/ month
Enterprise: This plan follows a custom, quotation–based pricing model.
Is support available?
Google Workspace offers users dedicated online support during business hours.
To what customer type do they cater?
- Individuals
- Freelancers
- Large Enterprises
- Medium Business
- Small Businesses
Spike: World’s First Conversational Emails
This is basically an email marketing tool that makes use of a chat interface to drive professional conversations. It also aims to be a productivity tool that uses short and simple chats by blending email with messaging. The most outstanding feature of this software is its ability to combine all the necessary tools into the inbox including messaging, email accounts, calendars, collaboration tools, and more.
What does Spike do?
Spike works more or less similar to the usual chat apps. It intimates users in real-time whenever someone has read their message or is typing a message. It also allows users to preview any file type without downloading it.
What are the main features?
- Conversational email and signature
- Storage and Message history
- Groups, notes, and audio/video calls
What are the plans?
Personal: Free
Solo:
$12 per account /month (billed yearly)
$15 per account/ month (billed monthly)
Team:
$8 per account/ month (billed yearly)
$10 per account/ month (Billed monthly)
Business: $16 per account/ month (Billed yearly)
Is support available?
Spikes provide online support to all users.
To what customer type do they cater?
- Individuals
- Freelancers
- Small Businesses
Final Thoughts
The importance of teamwork has been time and again stressed in the workplace environment. It can actually speed up the achievement of business goals. People with different skills come from different places to work towards a common goal which is to brainstorm ideas to maximize the business growth, success, and potential. This is known as collaboration and it is at this point that the use of collaboration software steps in. We hope that this list of top collaboration software in 2021 helped you choose the right one for you too!
