8 Best Remote Working Tools To Manage Team During COVID-19

Nobody thought that 2020 would bring this deadly Coronavirus (also called COVID-19). The virus has forced the companies to adopt the work-from-home culture.

The COVID-19 is still affecting the world on a large scale, resulting in a complete lockdown. The Government advisory boards in all the countries have advised the companies, businesses, organizations to allow their employees to work from home during this outbreak. 

Due to this sudden change in the workflow, most of the companies face these common remote working challenges-

• How to keep office people or team members in the loop?
• How to accomplish tasks?
• How to track the work progress of a project?
• How to manage the sales and production teams?

The challenges could be more as most of the organizations have less experience in managing a full-time remote workflow.

However, with the advanced technology, some intelligent remote working tools will help you during this COVID-19 outbreak. These work from home productivity software are capable of putting your team members in one place, assign tasks, manage projects, do video conferencing or team meetings, share files, etc.

8 Best Remote Working Tools To Use During Coronavirus Outbreak

Based on our research, we found these eight best remote working tools to manage your employees.

We have further categorized these eight tools into four groups, each group covering TWO software.

1- Best Task & Project Management Tools

• Monday
• Basecamp

2- Best Chat Tools For Team Management

• Slack
• Chanty

3- Best Video Conferencing Software For Team Meetings

• Zoom
• GoToMeeting

4- Best Password Manager Tools

• Dashlane
• LastPass

We tried to cover these remote working tools with a brief description along with the pricing and features so that you know all the details before using them.

Let’s check out the list of productive software to simplify your working process and empower workforce productivity during this outbreak. 

Best Task & Project Management Remote Working Software 

To handle a team remotely could be a challenge. But putting in use the tools like Monday and Basecamp, let you measure your employees’ performance, split project among people, track real-time project reports, stay functional, etc. Let’s discuss each of them in detail now –

1. Monday- Task Management Software

Monday is the most effortless virtual work hub application that powers remote teamwork. It is mainly designed for entrepreneurs, businesses who scaled rapidly but struggled to keep their employees engaged, productive, and happy.

The application brings transparency in work among the management and better collaboration. Start using Monday with these three simple steps:

• Enter Your Work Email 
• Enter your account details like – Full Name, Password, Team Name
• Then, fill the purpose of using Monday for things like Work, Personal, or School. 

You can add teammates, make admin to the one you want, send access to them via invite option, and get started.

You can put Monday to automation so that you focus on achievable targets. Moreover, you can integrate hundreds of existing tools you already using say, Slack, Zoom, Excel, Facebook ads, Dropbox, Mailchimp, and more. 

Monday offers a 14 days Free Trial and 18% Discount on the annual plan. Their pricing plans work according to the “Team Members” you wanted to add. 

<Sign Up For Monday>

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2. Basecamp- Project Management Tool

The team behind Basecamp designed the software to handle their team remotely. For the last 20 years, they have been working on the software to make it better. 

The application understands remote working requirements from A to Z and puts your work on automation by default.

With Basecamp, you can easily transition to remote work, split your work, add projects, and assign team members to it, share files, audio, video, assign tasks, deadlines, etc. 

Basecamp comes with the integration of crucial tools like Message Boards, To-dos, Docs & Files, Group Chat, etc. that are needed by the team to get work done. The best part is you can remove the tools if not required, edit or rename the default tool or add third party applications if needed.

What’s Cool About Using Basecamp?

Hold Notifications– Most of us get annoyed with notifications or pop-ups of applications, especially during working hours.

These pop-ups could be messages on projects you’re working on or any query of members in the group. But with Basecamp, you can hold these notifications by setting up the time until you’re back on work. Isn’t it cool?

Hill Charts– An exclusive feature of Basecamp to keep projects on track.

How does it work?

Most of us start with a business or work idea to reach specific goals and accomplishments. But in between lies so many questions, like

• To-do lists
• Required people for work
• Financial resources
• Investment plans
• Working capital arrangements, etc.

Here Basecamp helps you tackle all your problems at the uphill phase of the Hill (makes a custom To-do list) and eventually answers all your queries at the downside of the Hill making it happen. This tool is more than just a task management application. 

Basecamp offers 30 days Free Trial, where you get three projects, 20 users to add, and 1GB storage space, and the premium plan starts $99/month flat.

<Sign Up For Basecamp>

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Best Chat Tools For Team Management

The biggest challenge an organization faces in the transition to remote work is to keep their employees or team members in the loop with the projects, tasks, etc. With the help of chat tools like Slack and Chanty, it becomes easier to organize your team conversations. Let’s take a look-

1. Slack- An Organized Channel For Team Conversations

Most of you must have heard or might already be using Slack. But if you’re unaware of why to use Slack, then here are your answers.

Slack is one of the best messaging tools for both desktop and mobile. It brings your team together regardless of any size.  

With Slack, apart from video or voice calls, you can share and upload files securely (for free). Create separate groups like sales/marketing, HR, production unit, dealers, advertisers, finance department, etc. to manage your team members and keep everyone in the loop. Slack helps you to keep your conversations organized and to stay productive with the work.  

Slack comes with three pricing plans besides the FREE one: Standard, Plus, and Enterprise Grid. Here’s an overview of its pricing plans-

We are using its free plan at the moment, and it fulfills every need. But if your organization size is bigger, you can buy the premium plan. SLACK is offering nearly 60% discounts on their premium plans for Indian companies. 

<Sign Up For Slack>

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2. Chanty- Simple Team Chat Software

Chanty is a clean and straightforward team chat software where you can manage conversations in one place. You can do group video calls within the team to conduct meetings or discuss the project.

Chanty offers a private conversation feature where you can discuss or chat with specific team members by inviting them. You can create new tasks and assign them to specific team members by selecting them. 

If you are using any existing third-party chat tool and want to transfer all the chat history to Chanty, you can do that easily through its “Import” feature. At the moment, Chanty offers import from these third-party chat tools- Flock, Slack, HipChat, and Stride.  

To begin with Chanty, just follow the simple steps below–

1. Signup for the tool.
2. Set up your team by selecting the business niche, company size, and role.
3. Define the namespace of your company to set up the URL.

You will get a verification code to your registered email. Just put it and send invites to your team members.

Chanty offers two pricing plans– Free and Business plans. The free plan supports the business size of up to 10 members. For more than ten members, you will require to upgrade to a Business plan that costs $4 per team member every month. However, if you go for the Annual Business Plan (that costs $3 per user per month usually), you will get 50% OFF with additional features.

Take a look-

<Sign Up For Chanty>

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Best Video Conferencing Software For Team & Client Meetings

Video conferencing is required when you have clients outside India or vice versa. It helps you to conduct face-to-face meetings, webinars with team members, clients for any business project. Moreover, it binds all your team members through one software.

Let’s check out these two secure user interface video conferencing tools in the market.  

1. Zoom.us- Video & Web Conferencing Software

The Zoom is the number one video conferencing app because of its easy user interface. The software offers HD video and audio options for freelancers, bloggers, mid and big enterprises, businesses, supporting up to 1000 video participants, and 49 videos on the screen.

You can even record your team meetings and webinars to watch later on cloud or locally.

What’s best about using Zoom?

Take a look at its crucial features-

Zoom Chats – Create virtual 1:1 or group workspace is keeping all members productive, enabling polling or Q&A from anywhere.

You can even track the engagement of any members during meetings by the attention indicator. Zoom protects your data for up to 10 years with Smarsh and Global Relay integration.  

Expended Audio – VoIP and toll-based dial in at absolutely no cost. When you set a meeting, just share a dedicated dial-in number to let attendees join quickly without filling any meeting IDs. You can only integrate your existing audio provider (3rd party provider) or switch to SIP- connected audio instead of PSTN. 

Zoom’s pricing plans work according to the enterprise size. The free plan can host up to 100 participants and unlimited 1:1 meetings. Take a look at the other pricing packages of Zoom-

<Sign Up For Zoom>

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2. GoToMeeting by LogMeIn- Video Conferencing Software

GoToMeeting by LogMeIn is a mobile and desktop-friendly tool that lets you set up one-click meetings in no time. Voice commands (Siri for iPhone and Ok Google for Android) helps you schedule the next audio or video session instantly.

Avoid noting down the points in ongoing meetings because the app lets you collect all data from the cloud recording itself. Some powerful features of GoToMeeting are-

Screen sharing – Train people by providing live sessions at once rather than one-by-one onboarding sessions. While conducting a demo video class, its various existing app integration makes it much easier to communicate, eventually sketches productivity, and brings the best from your employee. 

Audio/ video conferencing – For freelancers, bloggers, and organizations of any size conducting high-quality video calls with your clients will bring an impact on your business. This video conferencing software works fantastic on any platform or operating system (Android, iOS, Mac). 

Conference room equipment – Get a user-friendly hardware bundle in one kit. GoToRoom by Dolby Voice is the best combo of hardware and software to ensure smooth meetings. Small businesses mainly require a clean application that fulfills their basic needs for collaboration, chats, file sharing, sessions, etc. and GoToMeeting is best at it. 

Get 14-days Free Trial for up to 250 participants. Apart from the free plan, GoToMeeting has two premium plans. Take a look-

<Sign Up For GoToMeeting>

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Best Password Manager Tools

Everyone must have stuck in this situation to “Ahh, what’s the password for this.” Now, this is, of course, faced by us too.

We often forget tools login access. But using these safest password manager tools wherein not only you can save your credentials, but also can keep the strong password that the tool suggested.

From today on, you’ll never find yourself worrying about what’s my Amazon, Flipkart, Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, etc. login credentials. Take a look-

1. Dashlane Password Manager

You must have multiple accounts, and it becomes tough to remember all the passwords, primarily when they consist of various symbols, special characters, numbers, etc. That’s when you can use Dashlane Password Manager, which helps you to keep all of them in one place.

The tool has a fantastic user interface for both mobile and desktop. It automatically fills all your passwords, payments, and personal details as soon as you go for logins on any device.

Though the software also offers a biometric unlock solution to the app. But it is always recommended that you remember the master password, which is required while logging in to this tool. 

Dashlane offers two pricing modules- A free plan and a Premium plan starting at $3.33 per month. You can upgrade to premium plans or switch from premium or premium plus plans within 30 days to get your money back.

<Sign Up For Dashlane>

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2. LastPass Password Manager

You are going to love this password protection application. The tool is accessible from both PC and Android phone. Though when using the phone, you won’t see the app icon on the main screen, but then go to my app store and click on LastPass to open.

When on PC, download the free version or add the browser extension. You will be asked to create a master key once before you start using the app. The fun part is the app allows a memorable passphrase to set your master password. Now, these passphrases can be a movie quote or a lyric from a song. 

As you login to your online accounts like Facebook, Instagram, eCommerce sites, net banking, etc., LastPass will ask you whether you want to save those passwords or not.

If you want to add them to your vault, click add, and it will be saved permanently. The next time you log in to those accounts, the username and password will be automatically filled by the LastPass autofill function.

If you’re willing to share your passwords with family or people at work, forward the login information to them. 

LastPass offers two Personal Plan Packages- Personal and Business.

Personal package has three pricing options- Free, Premium, and Families, whereas Business package has four pricing options- Teams, Enterprise, MFA, and Identity. Have an overview of the plans-

<Sign Up For LastPass>

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Final Words

No matter what type of business you are running and how much is your company size, the above mentioned remote working tools are perfect for you. Just give them a try and see how it works.

We recommend you to go with the free-trial first, and later you decide whether to upgrade or not.

The above work from home software will surely resolve your remote working challenges and boost your work productivity.

If you face any other issues or challenges while handling your team remotely, feel free to let us know in the comments below. We will surely suggest the tools.

Do let us know what you think about the article overall. We would love to hear your thoughts.