5 of the best collaboration apps for remote teams

Do you struggle with getting your remote team members on the same page? Are you missing important deadlines due to a lack of effective communication?

Introducing a good collaboration tool will help you address the inevitable challenges that arise when you have a global team.

In this article, we’re exploring five collaboration apps your remote team must check out and taking a look at the features offered by each.

FunctionFox

If you’re in a creative business, such as graphic design, and you often collaborate with clients and team members across the globe, you should explore FunctionFox to boost your team’s collaboration. It was built to help creative professionals manage administrative tasks related to project management and time tracking.

FunctionFox is popular for its live customer service and support, which is provided for free with each plan. This includes a dedicated account rep who helps with demos, implementation, and ongoing support.

FunctionFox offers project management features to facilitate collaboration such as commenting and email alerts for the whole team, as well as personal calendars, project scheduling, timelines with milestones, resource calendars and document and file sharing. The software also lets you track time with a stopwatch timer.

Some of the other features offered by FunctionFox include the ability to create invoices, estimates, and quotes; schedule meetings and events with a group calendar; and create contact lists, cycle and capacity reports, and budgets.

Pricing: Starts at $5 per user per month.

Project status page in FunctionFox (Source: GetApp.com)

Accelo

If you have a client-facing business and you need integrated software for managing sales and service-related tasks, billing, and project management in one place, you should consider Accelo. It’s a cloud-based option offering different modules—including a project management application—that can be purchased a la carte, depending on your business needs and priorities.

Accelo automatically syncs with your inbox and stores documents and meeting notes to boost collaboration. Other project management features include Gantt charts for planning, task management, time tracking, and more.

The platform provides a centralized location where service professionals can manage retainers and contracts with clients along with contact information, billing, and reporting. It also offers a client portal where clients can access their projects, contract service agreements, and account information at any time.

Pricing: Projects module starts at $16 per user per month when billed annually.

Task assignments and status in Accelo (Source: GetApp.com)

RoboHead

RoboHead is another popular project management solution specifically designed for marketing and creative organizations. It lets users manage projects from start to finish through deadline, time, and resource tracking; collaboration features such as approvals and notifications; and budgeting capabilities.

RoboHead offers a unique annotation and approval feature that allows your team to collaborate on projects by adding comments, highlighting and selecting text, and adding stamps (with date, time, and user).

Each time a new version is created and uploaded for review and approval, the previous version remains saved intact. Work can then be approved as is, approved with changes, or rejected. The entire team can stay up-to-date on the status with built-in notifications and emails.

Some other features offered by RoboHead include workflow management, scheduling, digital asset management, and reporting.

Pricing: Available on request.

Adding annotations to a project in RoboHead (Source: robohead.net)

Asana

Asana is a cloud-based task and project management solution that facilitates collaboration and communication. It helps users move away from collaboration over email, providing a single interface for managing projects and tasks.

Users can quickly create a project in Asana and assign owners or add followers to keep everybody in the loop. Within projects, you can create and assign tasks and subtasks.

Asana also lets you send and receive notifications on task updates and due dates, upload attachments, leave comments, give and receive feedback, and react to updates by “liking” them.

Other functionalities include progress tracking and status reporting, an activity dashboard, the ability to convert tasks into projects, access control, and more.

Pricing: Free for the Basic plan (up to 15 users). Premium plan starts at $9.99 per user per month when billed annually.

Task list in Asana (Source: GetApp.com)

Mavenlink

Mavenlink is a cloud-based project delivery tool designed for service providers. It offers advanced project management, resource planning, collaboration, project accounting tools, and business intelligence capabilities.

Mavenlink enables you to create a new projects using project planning templates and assign a date, time, and person to each task. The built-in Gantt chart software lets you schedule tasks and map a critical path.

Post messages and start public or private conversations by mentioning team members. Attach files, including Google Drive files, to conversations, so they appear in your activity feed.

You can track your tasks and prioritize them on Mavenlink, or sync with Google Tasks. The “cascade changes” feature lets you adjust and add the dependent tasks as the project timeline or scope changes.

Other features offered by Mavenlink include profitability analysis, real-time analytics, multiple billing rates, budgeting and forecasting, CRM integration, design management, and more.

Pricing: Starts at $19 per month for five users when billed annually.