What is a Team Collaboration Software?
Team collaboration software is defined as a computer application that enables and enhances the communication experience among team members. Such a software typically requires presence on the systems of all team members engaged in the collaboration.
For example, an online whiteboard is one of the most common types of team collaboration tools used for visual collaboration and presentation. Similarly, a Google Doc would be an example of a collaboration tool for a content or marketing team.
Let us look at a few key functions of team collaboration tools.
5 Key Must-have Functions of a Team Collaboration in 2023
- User friendly interface (must be non-technical)
Team collaboration software are meant to be widely used across technical and non-technical roles, making it essential for the software to be non-technical. At the same time, a tool that carries an intuitive, user friendly UX and aesthetically appealing UI, will find faster acceptance among employees at large.
- Provides multiple secure logins
The team collaboration software will most likely be always accessed by multiple employees at the same time, which means the software needs to allow multiple logins simultaneously. While at the same time such a software needs to restrict access to anyone outside the team, unless it is shared after proper authorization.
- Allows simultaneous file modifications
Carrying from the previous point, a collaboration tool also needs to have the function of allowing multiple entries, edits and modifications from multiple employees at the same time. For example, while using a visual collaboration tool, multiple users may be simultaneously using the same file to explain their points while in a meeting.
- Has minimal downtime
Nothing interrupts a collaboration effort more than a software that was key to the work and wouldn’t function. Since collaboration tools are particularly central to most meetings, especially those held remotely or are too large to function without a screen, there is an added responsibility to ensure nearly zero-downtime, which is 99%+ uptime.
- Has an easily accessible service team
Among all the shared software in an enterprise, it is typically the case that team collaboration tools are the most widely used. Given that, in case of softwares malfunction or function query, multiple enquiries may go out to the same vendor, with the expectation for quick responses.
The team collaboration software vendor must therefore be able to provide easy access from the company employees and process them within reasonable time-frames.
Top 6 Team Collaboration Software Tools in 2023
Disclaimer: The below list is piled based on publicly available information. Users are requested to thoroughly test out the software based on their own unique requirements, before making a decision on the final purchase.
- Fresco
Fresco is the leading online whiteboard software for enterprise visual collaborations.
Pricing: The software license has pricing set in 3 ranges- free, premium and enterprise. The premium account is at $15/ month per user and has all the features. For multiple accounts for team usage, the price can be negotiated with their sales team.
USPs:
- Lifetime free license.
- In-built and ready-to-use templates for all commonly used enterprise boards such as SWOT analysis, strategic planning, business model canvas, lean canvas and much more.
- Pure drag-and-drop ecosystem for simple use.
- Outcomes are a much more visually appealing alternative to Office 365 tools when presenting information to the team.
- Integrated internal task management system to facilitate efficient project management.
Key feature highlights:
- The free account provides access to all the necessary features needed to create any whiteboard template from scratch.
- Easily usable on any meeting software.
- The templates can be live-shared and edited among users during conferencing.
- Access controls for team-use.
- Multiple access for shared document editing that can be done simultaneously.
- Slack
Slack is the leading internal-chat and document sharing app for enterprises.
Pricing: With no free licenses, Slack can be purchased for $7.25 per user/month under the Pro account, $12.55 per user/month under the premium account and can be contacted directly to discuss team licenses.
USPs:
- Huddle calls (voice VOIP calls) for quick group discussions.
- Secure document sharing in the same chat window.
- Reasonably low starting price.
Key feature highlights:
- Chat, voice calls and video conferencing.
- Work time scheduling to let colleagues know each others work timings, especially in remote collaboration environments.
- Calendar integration to let colleagues see when a team member is in a meeting call and not available.
- Online/offline status symbols.
- Do-not-disturb mode to block desktop or mobile text notifications when busy.
- Salesforce Sales Cloud
Sales Cloud by Salesforce is the leading Customer Relationship Management (CRM) app for enterprise customer management.
Pricing: While each salesforce license type has a free trial, there are no completely free licenses. The license starting price for each user/per month starts at $25 under essentials, $75 for professional, $150 for enterprise and $300 for unlimited.
USPs:
- Allows users to leave comments on the latest customer interaction for each account. This ensures that no matter which department, sales or account management, is interacting with the customer, the account data stays updated for the next employee who interacts with the customer.
- Integrations for API connection to other popular business applications such as Marketo, Jira, Mailchimp, Dropbox etc.
- Has all the tools needed to keep customer communication unified under one app.
Key features:
- Reports and dashboards to understand the overall sales figures and how far the goals have been met.
- Revenue and accounting aggregation reports that can be scheduled to be sent out to select members at certain intervals.
- Campaign management for sales promotions and the revenue they bring in.
- Lead management based on the stage of the buying journey for a potential customer.
- Account management which gives a detailed account of the customer’s journey history with the company and all interactions since first contact.
- Contact management to keep a structured list of contact details of key executives at the business.
- Multiple device support, be it apps for mobile, tablet or desktop.
- Encrypted security for data sharing and API based inter-app communication.
- 24*7 customer support with maximum 1 day turn-arounds to queries.
- Google Workspace
Google Workspace, previously known as G-suite, is the leading cloud workplace and collaboration suite, ranging from Gmail to Google Meet.
Pricing: Apart from enterprise licenses that can be negotiated directly with the company’s sales team, there are 3 paid licenses and no free lifetime license. While each of the 3 licenses offers free trial for a limited period, their cost per user/ per month starts with the business starter at $1.5, business standard at $8.5 and about $15.75.
USPs:
- Affordable entry-level license.
- Plug-and-play, with all documents saved on the cloud.
- Offer cloud-alternatives to any Office 365 applications such as spreadsheets, doc files, drive etc.
- In-built meeting software.
- Ample document storage space even for the entry-level license (30 GB).
Key features:
- A complete suite of cloud-based collaborative workplace software including email, chat, document sharing and meeting software.
- Live synchronization across all devices. Documents can be opened and edited simultaneously across multiple devices by the same or multiple users.
- 3rd party integrations are easily available.
- Room to expand meeting software license to incorporate large-scale webinars.
- Employee-level access controls.
- Access controls for document and drive folders, including change of ownership.
- 2-layer authentication security for access management.
- Advanced licenses offer data and asset management under secured digital vaults.
- Option to record meetings and auto-transcribe the recording.
- Zoom One
Zoom One by Zoom, is the leading visual meeting software with integrated webinar capabilities.
Pricing: Zoom One only provides annual licenses. It starts with a free license, then moves up the price per user to $132/ per year for pro and $225/ per year for business. For multiple team licenses, the company’s sales team can be contacted for a final quote.
USP:
- Up to a 1000 attendees per room for the enterprise license but even the basic free version allows up to 100.
- Admin controls to mute or eject attendees.
Key features:
- Can be used for both meetings as well as webinars.
- Meeting recording and admin control over attendees.
- In-built whiteboards for in-meeting visual collaboration.
- Email and calendar integration.
- Ability to send webinar/ meeting reminders via email directly from the app.
- Asana
Asana is the leading task and project management software with in-built workflow management tools.
Pricing: Asana starts with a lifetime free license and has 3 additional models per user- premium at $10.99/ monthly, business at $24.99/ monthly, and enterprise multi-license deals can be discussed directly with the sales team.
USP:
- Comprehensive with task management, workflow management and project management.
- Unlimited projects and tasks from the free license itself
Key features:
- Apps for all devices.
- In-built workflow builder.
- Project update visualizations for status across the milestones.
- In-built forms for employee surveys and polls
- Document upload and sharing.
- In-built task and project templates.
- Admin access controls.
- Employee access and entry control for each project.
