As days pass by, working remotely have become a trend now.

In the modern day, it seems quite possible for an entrepreneur or businessman to run their businesses remotely.

For an employee, it’s now possible to work from home whenever he or she wants and be productive enough. Companies nowadays are focusing on their employee’s work-life balance and allowing them to work from their respective houses.

With technological markets enhancing their services every day, there are several productivity tools developed now which allows you to work remotely by the use of newly introduced applications.

This is a optimum way for companies to save money as well when it comes to the usage of computers and electricity. It also helps the employees to become more productive.

Tools and its Specifications

There are several tools introduced in today’s world which you can consider when it comes to working remotely.

Below listed remote working tools are currently ruling the market because of the services they provide:

Slack

When it comes to managing remotely working teams, communication becomes an important factor for all managers. Slack is a chat-based online platform which can be accessed by your team members to communicate with you or other team members in case of any queries or doubts. A few reasons why you should consider this platform

• Brainstorming
• File-sharing
• Comparing notes and keeping yourselves updated with the recent news of an industry.
• It can be linked with any other incorporate platforms such as Base camp, Zoom, Mail Chimp or Skype.

You can on board slack application into your company by investing about 6 dollars to 12 dollars per active user, which is cheap and affordable.

The storage limit set by the slack providers is about 10,000 messages or 5 GB data. It is a useful messaging remote tool for your team members which allows you to organize as well as prioritizing on necessary conversations which have to be addressed immediately.

It can also be installed in your mobile phones. You can also use this software to build simple blocks, incoming webhooks, bots, commands, and so on. These features make the software for all the remote workers.

Troop Messenger

This is a comprehensive messaging application where you can deliver messages instantly. It can work for both the small business industries to large-scale industries. With the help of this application, you can connect with your colleagues who may be at different places in the world and cater to your business requirements. You also can get the benefit of upgrading your current technology, in terms of communication to an ultimate next level. The key features are

• Pinging users and audio calls
• Video calling services
• Instant messaging and Customer support services through the year
• Forming groups to collaborate with all the members of your team.

You can pay about 1 dollar to 5 dollars per month for an active user. This software supports any instant messaging platforms such as Gmail, FaceBook, Skype, etc.

These were some tools which are currently dominating the market, and a lot of companies are availing benefits from using the applications. If you want to make profits and improve your work culture by using technology, the above-listed tools are some best options available for you.

Proprofs

This knowledge base software application can be utilized to empower your team members who are working remotely.
Best features of this platform are –

• Your teammates can produce user guidelines, FAQs, documentation for clients and employees.
• It develops employee efficiency significantly.
• It also promotes sharing knowledge with your team members and keeps them posted about the latest updates.
• It also features reporting tools which help the manager in extracting employee statistics and take a decision accordingly.

You can use this application by paying 9 dollars to 80 dollars per active user, based on the services you choose.

This is considered to be one of the best remote tools which have been introduced in the technological market, so far. Some of the best company’s platform this software supports are Sony, CISCO, DHL, Ford, Yale, Dell and so on. The user-friendly navigation within the software makes it the best platform for the remote workers to use this software.

EveryTimeZone

If you are looking for the best remote collaboration tool, then EveryTimeZone application would be the best tool for you. Advantages of using this application are –

• You can keep a track of people or team members who are available for you to work and who is out of reach across the globe.
• It helps in solving your problem by displaying the time zones around the world.
• Assists in identifying your co-worker’s time and determining whether it would overlap with your time zone.

It would cost you about 12 dollars to onboard this application into your firm or company per active user.

It supports systems used in Amazon, CentOS, Debian, Oracle Linux, and so on. Assessing the time zones become easier with the help of this software and is considered to be user-friendly. This is why most of the remote workers across the globe use this software. It has the capability to store about 500GB of data.

Zoom

It is considered to be the best application when it comes to remote working tools. Key benefits of using this application are

• It helps you to share your screens with your colleagues easily who are working remotely in different places in the world.
• A perfect tool for your teammates and permits about 25 participants to share their screens and be a part of it.
• Each meeting conducted using this application can last up to 40 minutes.
• You can also share files and messages using this application.

While the basic application for business purposes would cost you for an active user about 19.99 dollars per month allowing 100 participants to share their screens, you can also opt for high paid plans ranging between 35 dollars to 260 dollars per month, which would allow about 500 participants to share their respective screens.

This software support multiple platforms such as Windows, Linux, IOS, Android, and so on. The user-friendly coding structure of the software makes it comfortable for all remote workers to use this software. It can store up to 1GB of data, depending on the plan you choose.

Basecamp

It is an effective tool in time management criteria, you can use the application to share and save confidential and useful documents. Apart from this, some of the other services offered by Basecamp are

• Automatic Check-ins.
• To-do-checklist.
• Campfires permitting users to chat and respond to questions.
• Message dashboard is used for making effective discussions for the team. The work can be easily managed by using this application.

You need to pay 99 dollars per active user monthly to onboard this application in your company.

This platform supports web applications, Android applications, podcasts, Mac, etc. The application is easy to use when it comes to installation, which is why it becomes easier for remote workers to use this software.

Asana

It is an effective management remote tool that all your remote workers can make use of. Some of the key benefits of using this application are

• It permits you to allocate, cascade and assign tasks and projects to your teammates easily.
• It assists your team members in keeping track of their progress, for the projects assigned to them while also showing to-do checklists of an individual team member.
• You can also upload several attachments from your computer into the shared drives or Google Docs, Dropbox and many more platforms.

The actual cost to onboard this application in your firm can range between 10 dollars to 12 dollars per active user, every month.

There are numerous platforms which Asana software supports. Some of them are Microsoft Outlook, Adobe Cloud, Salesforce, Litmus, and so on. The software is easy to download and can be accessed from anywhere at any time. For this specific reason, it becomes easier for remote workers to use this application. Even though there are no storage limits if you are using this software, you can upload up to 100MB of file per task.

Zapier

It is an important tool to remotely manage your team when it comes to using tools and applications together. Let’s help you in finding out why you need to use this application –

• This remote collaboration tool helps in automating your work by connecting all your applications or tools together to ensure that your work becomes easier and smoother.
• You can also link website applications which can ease the process file or data sharing.
• You can use this tool to increase the productivity of your team within a short duration of time.
• You can also sync different platforms such as Dropbox, Skype, Gmail, Buffer, PayPal, etc. which can be accessed easily, helping you in saving a lot of time for your time.

Onboarding this application would cost you about 50 dollars to about 125 dollars per active user monthly basis.

Using this software, you can connect to thousands of other tools and applications which uses their storage capacity to store your data and information.

Quip

If your team uploads a lot of documents daily on platforms such as Google Docs or Dropbox, you can make use of this remote collaboration tool named as Quip. Advantages of using this application are

• It is a document editing and sharing tool which also compatible with Andriod and Apple IOS platforms.
• You can install this application on your phone or tablets which you can access from anywhere at any time to upload any necessary documents which would help you in taking effective decisions.
• The tool also notifies you with the name of the users who have recently used or modified the document.
• You can use this application to save sensitive conversations and train newcomers accordingly.

It would cost you about 30 dollars per month for an active user to onboard this application. You can install this software as it supports platforms such as Jira, TaskRay, PDFfiller, smartsheet, altify, etc. You can integrate your sales department to work using this application. There are no restrictions when it comes to storage.

Dropbox

Considered to be one of the best platforms, which currently dominate the market, Dropbox permits you to invite your team members to interact on folders or files. Some other benefits of using this application are –

• It integrates magnificently with other office tools and software, such as Microsoft office.
• You can integrate the application with all the applications which require downloading and uploading files and uses APIs to function.
• This will help you in improving collaboration, streamlining workflows of tasks, securing contents and data, and so on.

You can onboard this application in your company by paying 50 dollars per month for an active user. It’s easy to use and upload files. Owing to this feature, it becomes easier for remote workers to download this application and use it for their benefit. It will allow you to store about 2GB of data.

Harvest

Considered to be the best tool in tracking your employee’s working time, this application is easy to use.

Why use this application?

• You can track your team member’s login and logout time and accordingly create timesheets.
• This tool provides insight reports which would allow taking an effective decision for your business in terms of profits, invoices, payments, integration with any other preferred tools and so on.
• You can also sync this tool with any other time tracking applications such as Quip or Zapier.

You can pay about 11 dollars per month for an active user to use this application. You can integrate this software with your applications and tools to increase the productivity of your employees and save time. There are no restrictions when it comes to storage capacity.

To Sum-up with:

These were some tools which are currently dominating the market and a lot of companies are availing benefits from using the applications. If you want to make profits and improve your work culture by using technology, the above-listed tools are some best options available for you.

Originally Published at: 11 Must have Tools for Remote Workers that boost productivity in 2019