The ripple effect of the coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused many teams to work from home. As a fully remote business working remotely is something we are very familiar with. Must of our clients are out of state, so we use many of these tools to stay connected. If your business is now managing a full-time remote workforce for the first time, here are the three top digital tech tools that will help your team stay connected.

Trello: Stay Connected with this Project Management Tool

Trello is the visual collaboration platform that gives teams perspective on projects. You can use Trello to collaborate, communicate and coordinate on all of your projects. Whether you need to organize the work of a whole team or just want to boost your own productivity.

trello card view

If you are like us, we are visual people, so a platform like this really works best for our team. The card view provides that birdseye view of the current ongoing tasks. When you complete a task, moving the card to the “Completed List” provides a snapshot of all completed tasks by an individual. At any point in time, a manager can review the team’s progress, see what is completed, assign new tasks, and make notes within each task.

Slack: Stay Connected with Messaging that Works

There are many chat platforms out to choose from, but Slack is by far the leading messaging tool to date. We use Slack every single day. We discuss client work, plans, new projects, and fun team collaboration. Slack allows you to group your organization into channels. This makes it easy to organize by topics or projects.

Another benefit includes its easy file sharing. It’s simple and lets you upload virtually any file type. Slack’s search feature is another plus! It not only lets you search messages and archives but also lets you search files including Word documents and PDFs you uploaded.

Zoom In for a Face to Face with your Team

Messaging is great and all, but sometimes meetings call for a face to face. Video conferencing with Zoom works great for this. For individuals and small groups, Zoom’s free tier is in a class of its own, offering room for as many as 100 attendees. Quite impressive for a free version. The only thing to keep in mind is the free version meeting time cannot exceed 40 minutes.

Screen sharing through Zoom is available on every platform, though what you can share varies depending on the operating system you’re using. Overall it’s a great option if you are looking for an affordable and quality video conferencing solution zoom is one to strongly consider.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Trello used for?

Trello is, at its core, an online corkboard. You use it to organize “cards” into lists—those cards can be tasks, notes, projects, shared files, or anything else that helps your team work together.

Is Slack free?

You can use Slack with a limited number of features for free, but if you need more, Slack offers two paid plans. Learn more here.

Is Zoom really free?

Zoom offers a full-featured Basic Plan for free with unlimited meetings. Try Zoom for as long as you like – there is no trial period. Your Basic plan has a 40 minutes time limit on meetings with three or more total participants.

With the above tools, it’s easy to keep track of projects, message and communicate with your team throughout the day. You may even find that your team enjoys working with these tools and will continue using these tools when you return to the office.