Slack brings team communication and collaboration into one place so you can get more work done, whether you belong to a large enterprise or a small. Slack is a leader in the business communications market, and for good reason. The solution went largely unrivaled for years, and it has therefore been able to secure itself as a powerful messaging.
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Last Updated on June 24, 2020
If you’re building a small remote working team then it can be confusing to find solutions to help you all work together efficiently. From instant messaging to video conferencing tools, here is our choice of the best free online collaboration tools for business.
The good news?
We’ll help you get up and running without spending a dime!
Slack: One Collaboration Tool To Rule Them All
You have more than likely visited a few websites for ideas before you hit our site and likely saw Slack on their list also. If you didn’t, you should go back to that site immediately and point out to them that they are ‘idiots’ on their contact form.
Moving on, there’s a good reason why you have come across Slack being recommended before… it is absolutely amazing! So much so I wasted half an hour rewriting part of the lord of the rings poem thing for that pic over there.
Ahem! Moving on…
First of all, you can integrate so many other tools into Slack that it becomes your one-stop shop for all of your team communication. In fact, the vast majority of the other tools mentioned in this article can be integrated with Slack which makes life easier and more efficient for both yourself setting this all up, and for your team when you invite them to join the fun.
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It also stops you having to check email, Facebook, WhatsApp etc for all the different messages you get from everybody. Just make sure your team is on board and your life will get easier!
The King Of Free Online Collaboration Tools
We can’t possibly cover them all in this article as there are simply too many (browse the full list here), but here are just a few of the free online collaboration tools that Slack integrates with via its apps:
- Google analytics (We like the Arc extension)
- File sharing with Dropbox, Box, G Drive, Evernote
- Custom action creation via Zapier or IFTTT (If That Then This)
- Meditation (I like meditation, but could get weird in a Slack group? :-/)
- Video chat – Google hangouts, Skype, and (our favorite) Zoom
Finally, Slack works literally anywhere. It’s available for your desktop, tablets and mobile phones so you’ll always be in the loop with what’s going on with your team. Unless you mute it of course. ?
Documents, Spreadsheets, And Presentations
If you collaborate online using documents such as articles, spreadsheets or presentation slides then this is the suite of online tools for you.
It is all stored in the cloud so your desktop isn’t bogged down with tons of files, and you can allow others to view these files to give feedback, or even allow them to have the ability to actually edit these files.
Bit of a voyeur?
You can, if you desire, watch in real time as people are working on documents, great if you are in an audio or video chat and want to team brainstorm while the fruits of your discussion show up in front of everyone.
These tools all integrate with Slack also via the Google Drive Slack app.
To Do Lists
OK, If you have no intention of using Slack at all, then my recommended team to-do tool is Nozbe, but as I’m such a Slack fanboy these days I had to choose something Slack integrated to make life easier for the HOG team. We picked out the cunningly named ‘To-do’ app by Workast and it’s actually a joy to use. It’s simple, intuitive, and again, all in the cloud so you don’t have software slowing down your teams’ computers.
The beauty of using this app in Slack is that you can just send items to your to-do list directly from the slack app while chatting. On top of this, you can gleefully assign a task like ‘washing my feet’ (for example) to a specific team member(s) by simply typing “/todo wash my feet” like so:
which then appears automagically in your connected todo app. Kinda like this second image:
All ready for your team to get to work on, nice!
If you already have Trello, Asana or Wunderlist already on the go, you can also integrate these with Slack if you are happy with their functionality.
Video Conferencing
If you are working in a really small team, like two to four of you, then you can probably get away with using Skype or Google hangouts. We suggest however that you use Zoom for collaborating online with bigger groups as it handles larger team calls far better. Unfortunately, Zoom is not free when integrated with Slack. You will need at minimum a pro account. Kaiser emergency copay.
Personally, I think that’s a mistake on the part of Zoom, I bet they will miss out on a bunch of people who might have otherwise upgraded if they had allowed a basic free account to integrate with Slack, but alas you can only use the free version of this collaboration tool outside of it.
That said, if you are planning on growing your team soon, and think you will definitely get the use out of it, then you might as well get used to something you can grow into from the get-go. It will make things much easier for you and your team further down the road if you take on the learning curve while your team is small.
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One app to bring them all and in Slack channels bind them
In the Slack app directory where productivity lies” theme=”style5″]
Erm… did I mention that Skype, Google hangouts and Zoom all plug into Slack?
[clickToTweet tweet=”One app to rule them all, One app to find them, One app to bring them all and in Slack channels bind them In the Slack app directory where productivity lies” quote=”One app to rule them all, one app to find them,
One app to bring them all and in Slack channels bind them
In the Slack app directory where productivity lies” theme=”style5″]
Erm… did I mention that Skype, Google hangouts and Zoom all plug into Slack?
Using Slack For Small Business
What about you, do you have your own pick of the best free online collaboration tools for business that make good alternatives to Slack?
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How about some tips on the best whiteboard or programmer apps for Slack?
We’re always open to fresh ideas, one of the benefits of working remotely is its flexibility. So, like most ‘best’ lists, this may well change over time if we get some great ideas from you!
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© Getty Images How Slack Solved One of the Hardest Things About Slack© Getty Images In this photo illustration a silhouette hand holding a..The company's chief product officer says this is an opportunity to 'reinvent the way you work.'
Slack has an interesting perspective on remote work. Like most companies, it has had to adapt to a very different way of working over the past year. At the same time, it makes a tool that has become almost essential for teams that are trying to stay connected and productive, even when they can't work in the same location.
In that sense, there are few companies more closely associated with working remotely than Slack. Maybe you could make a case for Zoom, which became one of the most important apps in the world last year when it was suddenly where we did everything from customer meetings, to birthday parties, to yoga classes, and even virtual school. Our students are still using Zoom every day.
Zoom is actually a good example. The reason it became essential is that it was simple. All you had to do was send someone a link and they could join your meeting, even if they knew nothing about videoconferencing.
In Slack's case, the fact that the company is working through the same challenges as all of its customers has put the company in a very unique position to offer solutions.
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Of course, like almost anyone who has used it, I have feelings about Slack. It is, at the same time, an extraordinarily useful tool for team communication and collaboration, and also an endless stream of conversations that may or may not require my attention. Thankfully, over the past few years, I've learned a few tricks that have made Slack a far more helpful tool, and less of a distraction.
I also had a chance to talk to Slack's Chief Product Officer, Tamar Yehoshua, for The 29 Steps Podcast, about how Slack adapted to working remotely over the past year, and how that helped it innovate and create new features designed to help teams stay connected and productive.
You should definitely check out the entire interview, but one thing she said in particular stuck out to me:
This is your opportunity to reinvent the way you work, there's no way we've found the optimal way of working.
Let's face it, none of us has this figured out. Even if we thought we did, 2020 happened and we realized that all of the things we assumed about the best way to work were less about best practices and more about habits. We worked the way we did because it was convenient and we'd always done it that way.
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Communication is a great example. If you're used to working side by side in an office, it takes some adjusting to stay connected to your team via video meetings and Slack conversations. That doesn't mean it can't work.
There has always been a problem, however. In fact, I'd argue it's been the hardest thing about using Slack. If your goal is to create a product that replaces email, for example, that means everyone you communicate with has to be on Slack. And, not only that, they have to be a part of your organization, which is probably not the case.
While it may be great for eliminating internal emails, most of the world can't send you Slack messages. And, most of the people outside of your company aren't accessible to you via Slack, even if they are already a Slack user.
To solve that, the company introduced Slack Connect, which allows you to set up shared channels with anyone outside of your organization. That's helpful, but setting up a channel isn't always the most efficient way to connect with a customer or client for a quick conversation about scheduling a presentation.
Starting today, however, Slack Connect will let you send DMs to anyone simply by sending them an email invitation. Once they click accept, you'll be able to send them Direct Messages from one Slack workspace to another, without having to go through the effort of setting up a Channel. Making things easier is always a win for users, especially when they're having to figure out how to adapt to completely new circumstances.
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Update: Slack received pushback on this feature due to concerns it could be used for harassment. To address this, Slack has 'removed the ability to customize a message when a user invites someone to Slack Connect DMs,' according to Jonathan Price, Slack's vice president of communications and policy.
Slack For Small Business
One of the things that often happens to companies is that when circumstances change, they try to figure out how to bend them to the way they work. They try to force their model into an environment where it not only no longer fits, but something is going to break. That almost never goes well for companies that try.
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Instead, the idea is that when the way you've always done things no longer works in light of your circumstances, take it as an opportunity to innovate--to do something different. Like Slack, you might even come up with a way to solve the hardest thing about your business.