Tools to Manage Remote Teams in 2023

Digitalization and globalization are the two strong pillars for remote working. The current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many companies to go remote and work from home has become the new normal. Successfully managing a remote team entirely depends on tools and processes.

Remote working is growing popular with companies because of fewer office expenses, flexibility, better work-life balance, and motivated employees.

In this article, we have listed the most important aspect of remote team management; tools that foster efficiency and productivity.

Project Management

1. ProofHub

ProofHub is a collaborative and centralized project management software suitable for every aspect of running a project. This software offers various tools for online collaboration, communication, creating workflows, visibility, monitoring progress and time tracking, and accountability for increased productivity.

Features:

• All-rounder project management software suitable for all business types, large scale, and small scale.
• This tool is beneficial to teams both onsite and remote because of its compatibility with mobile devices and other operating systems.
• Personalize your ProofHub account with a custom domain, brand logo, and color.
• Easy task management by set dates, reminders, time estimates, attach files, add comments on particular tasks all in one place.
• Discussions, Chat, and Collaborative Proofing.
• File Management, Email Integration, API, and more.
• Generate detailed reports and resources in a single click to help you review project progress and plan.
• Additional features like custom roles, white labeling, project manager, @mentions, custom workflows, network control, advanced activity logs, and account transfer tool, among others.

2. Asana

Asana is one of the most popular project management apps and is extremely simple to use, allowing teams to collaborate, organize, plan, and execute their work. It is an all-inclusive work and project management platform to keep track of the projects and tasks, exchange files, comments, and notes, and deadlines. It allows you to break down projects into specific tasks and assign them to your team members. It requires minimal training and has a simple solution over a more advanced one.

Feature:

• Accurate Work, Project, and Task Management.
• Customizable Dashboards where progress can be followed for each task separately and display the status of each participant.
• Communication, @mentions, proofing, project conversations, status updates, notifications, and reminders in multiple languages.
• View task list, reports, portfolios, calendar, files, and a single view of team bandwidth to rebalance workloads if required.
• Create and manage teams, connect teammates with a shared calendar, and conversations.
• Easy Integrations with other tools such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Slack, Gmail or Outlook, Salesforce, and many more.

3. Basecamp

Basecamp is another popular and effective project management apps that allow you to monitor tasks, discussions, documents, collaboration, and discussions directly through the dashboard. The tool with 6 other integrated tools makes it effective in tracking and ensuring effective completion of all projects. Basecamp shouldn’t require a lot of advanced training because of its easy functionality. There is a lot of additional documentation and user-generated content that can help you familiarize yourself with Basecamp.

Features:

• Use the Hill Charts feature to efficiently monitor your projects.
• Give access to everyone to the stored and shared documents and files with simple drag and drop upload.
• All tasks are organized in a to-do list and also keeps an updated list of what needs to be done by the team.
• Create a schedule for projects to keeps track of dates, milestones, and events and notify everyone added to the project.
• It is great for discussing and sharing ideas, proposals and a campfire allows easy chatting and questions.
• Do collaborate work with your clients on projects and choose what you want to share.
• Forward important emails from your clients into Basecamp for discussion with your team.
• Generate quick reports to see what’s overdue, what has been completed, and what are the next pending task.

Process Management

4. Pipefy

Pipefy is an excellent tool for managing workflow processes. It is one of the most valuable remote team management tools and offers a lot of flexibility for a great price. One of its unique features is automation, using which remote teams can complete tasks in less than half the time. Pipefy has a highly customizable and flexible solution that is completely free of up to 10 users. They offer different templates including product roadmaps and employee onboarding, allowing you to quickly load different project types into your account.

Features:

• Customizable Dashboard and Workflow Management.
• Collection Management with recurring billing and payments. Accounts Payable and Receivable and approval Process Control.
• Bug tracking and audit trail. It also supports backlog & ticket management.
• Business Process Management with automation, process mapping, alerts, and notifications.
• Provides Online CRM and customer support tracking. Customer surveys & feedback with a self-service portal. Customer engagement and account management.
• Manage inter HR and recruitment management; from applicant tracking, background screening, interview management to employee database, benefits management, performance management, time-off management.

Finance and Accounting

5. Tally

For over three decades now, Tally has been the most popular accounting software used by business owners across India to manage their day-to-day operations and generate required business and financial reports which help make important decisions. Tally supports multi-languages, is easy to use, executes in real-time, operates at high speed, and has full-proof online support.

Features:

• Simple accounts management by creating and tracking sales vouchers; and get detailed reports on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly sales basis.
• Easily generate cash/cheque deposit slips and track them. It supports transactions made in the form of e-Payments with multiple banks.
• Flexibly manage stocks by defining unlimited stock groups, stock categories, and arrange stock accordingly. Generate reports based on stock groups and categories to get an overview of stock status.
• Easily file GST Returns and handle GST transactions, reverse charge scenarios, advances, and so on.
• Access Balance Sheet, and Profit and Loss statement at any point in time in just one click.
• Businesses can define the budget for cost centers and track expenses against the budgets. Tally warns the user if the particular transaction is crossing the defined limits.

6. QuickBooks

QuickBooks is one of the most commonly used accounting software designed to help you manage and track the financial health of your business. It supports diverse aspects related to your business with the accounting, payroll, payments, inventory, generates reports, prepares for taxes, and much else. Its easy-to-use functionality usually allows business owners to manage QuickBooks themselves.

Features:

• Create invoices and manage sales and income to track sales by customers.
• Automatically keep track of your bills and categorize expenses by connecting your bank and credit card accounts.
• Manage all of your cash inflow and outflow activities to be able to access several reports that provide valuable insights into the financial health of your business. All the reports are prebuilt and can be run in just a few clicks and are updated in real-time as you enter and save transactions.
• Run the profit and loss report in minutes and it will show you how profitable your business is by summarizing its income minus its expenses.
• QuickBooks payroll function automatically calculates and runs payroll as often as you need it.
• QuickBooks will automatically track and update inventory for you as you enter transactions.
• All QuickBooks Online (QBO) subscribers can download the app to their mobile device for free, take a picture of a receipt, and upload it in just a few minutes.

Project and Time Tracking

7. When I Work

When I work with supports one of the biggest issues that many remote teams face is accurately tracking time worked and scheduling. Since remote employees can live around the world, you often have several people collaborating on projects from different time zones. This tool makes it easy to schedule work for employees and track their work time especially for remote workers that are getting paid by the hour. This tool is free for small businesses with up to 75 employees or less.

Features:

• Streamline time management and simplify employee scheduling and inform them through push alerts.
• The streamlined process will easily verify and validate time and location check-ins for payroll export and adjust timesheets submitted by employees for approval.
• Organize staff assignments and schedule through color-coding. Overtimes can be easily monitored and tracked.
• Easy check-ins for employees in the office or the field through their computers, laptops, smartphones, or tablets.
• Ensure employees are clocking in from the right job sites with the help of GPS tracking and live map views.
• Use the reporting features to monitor and review employee attendance data.
• Customize and tailor plans, functions, and features depending on your business needs.

File Sharing

8. DropBox

DropBox is the most trusted file storage app available today and is a great choice for remote teams. Your team members will need to share a lot of files when working with remote teams. Sending large files over email is difficult, and impossible when the file is too large. Dropbox ensures that you are sharing all of the files that you need to within your team and that they are easily accessible. It supports exchange from all operative systems, and all types of smartphones and tablets, and any change you make will sync across your account.

Features:

• Offers ample storage and sharing capabilities which, and for an individual user, comes free of charge.
• Simply download the app on your preferred device, create an account, and start sharing content within minutes.
• DropBox allows users to sync their files online and across devices automatically from anywhere.
• Content Collaboration with shared files. Teams can edit files as a group, communicate and discuss changes at minimal to no cost.
• It automatically backs up camera photos from your computer or mobile device.
• Simplify team management, support data security, and compliance, and gain actionable insights into a team activity.

9. Google Drive

Google Drive is another popular cloud-based storage option to keep your photos, emails, and other files on their server. It also offers some basic office tools including; Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Slides. You can even share these documents and make edits in real-time collaborating with your team.

Features:

• Scan documents from any device. Just take a photo of a document (like a receipt) from your phone and upload it straight to Drive.
• Work offline by switching specific files to Offline mode and keep working on them even without internet access.
• Restore the older version of your documents if you accidentally deleted something or want to compare the original document after a few rounds of updates.
• Changes are automatically saved when you are working online without you needing to interrupt your work to hit the save button.
• Google Drive also gives you the ability to convert image files such as JPEG, PNG, and GIFs, as well as PDFs, into editable documents.
• Add audio files to Drive, and you can create your playlist and play songs using apps like Music Player. Videos can also be viewed from Drive and don’t require a separate app to do so.
• Collaborate with your team online for real-time edits to the same documents using custom links with different access levels.
• Add Drive files to emails as attachments if you’re using Gmail.
• Access Drive from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection.
• Create surveys and event RSVPs using Google Forms. Choose from dozens of professional, premade templates.

Communication and Chat

10. Slack

Right communication is very important for remote teams. Slack could be the perfect choice for a less formal platform for brainstorming, file sharing, comparing notes as well as staying informed on matters related to industry news. This tool allows instant messaging with team members and is incorporated with apps such as Skype, Basecamp, Zoom, and MailChimp among others. The platform has several advanced features, including voice chat for simple communication with many more.

Features:

• Search, shared channels, apps and integrations, pinned items, and more are some of the best features of Slack.
• Pin message feature is useful in highlighting priorities and need-to-know items.
• Access and discuss files directly in your channels through easy integration with several popular apps and tools, syncing up with file management tools like Google Drive and Dropbox.
• Upload and share documents, spreadsheets, images, and PDFs. Archive and revisit documents for additional comments, later reference, and searched easily.
• You can easily search, sort, and filter files and documents in Slack.
• Sort and adjust the sidebar menu options to your specifications. You can also customize the sidebar theme.
• Use the remind command to remind yourself or someone else of an event, meeting, deadline, message, file, or what have you.

11. GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting is one of the most popular and reliable online meeting programs. Its easy-to-use interface puts it above its competition and has become a favorite tool for teleconferencing, online meetings, and even sales demonstrations. GoToMeeting is extremely flexible and can be used from any browser as well as most mobile devices. It offers a ton of great features, too, even in the free version. You can schedule, host, and record online meetings and webinars and the top-tier version will accommodate up to 100 attendees with a professional paid version.

Features:

• It offers high-definition video conferencing than just audio conferencing. This is a great feature when you’re making a sales pitch or having an important intense discussion.
• You can provide toll-free numbers to eliminate long-distance fees for attendees.
• Share several different windows, or just one full-screen while you discuss.
• There can be multiple meeting facilitators. You can share or give control of the meeting administration to another user or you can give another user control of the mouse and keyboard, but retain general meeting administrator control.
• Record the meeting for later access and play it as an MP4 or WMV file.
• Draw and highlight items on the screen during the meeting using the drawing tools.
• Use add-ons and plug-ins to manage meetings using Outlook, Google Calendar, iOS calendars, and other popular devices and apps, and click the GoToMeeting button, and you are connected.
• You can buy monthly service to host unlimited meetings for up to 100, 500, or 1,000 participants.
• With GoToTraining you can create a full catalog of courses to offer students, collect payments, store class materials for downloading, and more.
• Entrepreneurs can launch their own online training business, using GoToTraining as the classroom interface, without overhead expenses of classroom space.

12. Zoom

This one has been particularly popular during COVID-19 and rightly so. Zoom offers HD video conferencing, online business meetings, webinars, and mobile capabilities into one collaborative solution. You can seamlessly join meetings, switch between participants to share screens, and make representations that all participants can see in real-time. Zoom has all essential tools for small, medium, and large-sized teams that want to keep in touch and continue their daily workflows with minimal disruption.

Features:

• You can host unlimited one-on-one meetings even with the free plan and up to 40 minutes of video conferences for up to 100 participants.
• You can host up to 500 participants for group video conferencing with the large meeting add-on purchase.
• Share your screen with one-on-one meet or with large groups so they can see what you see.
• It can be instantly activated and is super easy to use. Simply click on the link and join the meeting when you are invited for one.
• Use video conferencing for online business meetings and save time and money.
• Allows chrome and outlook plug-ins and has MP4 or M4A local recording options.
• Screen and content sharing, messaging, recording, Webinars, demos, tutorials, group meetings, client meetings, multiple participants, personal meeting ID, integrations, Zoom Rooms are some of the best features of Zoom.

Knowledge Management System

13. Proprofs

ProProfs is a knowledge management software tool used to create digital packages or PDFs for your company, its mission, training procedures, user guides, and highly searchable online FAQs to improve customer service. This tool helps in improving employee efficiency and promotes a flexible knowledge-sharing culture. It also has a reporting feature that makes it easy for the team manager to find the required information and create solutions at the same time aligning with the processes, staff, and technology.

Features:

• This is an all-in-one learning management system used for all the essential e-learning solutions and tools such as online training and education, poll and survey for feedback, FAQs, live chat to facilitate communication, and much more.
• This knowledgebase solution allows you to answer questions instantly and saves time and cost.
• The tool is compatible with any device and across multiple platforms, tablets, smartphones, and operating systems.
• No HTML experience, software downloads, and installation, or server integration are needed since it is a fully web-based LMS.
• The tool provides a comprehensive option of analytics that can produce detailed reports on tracking usage and user’s progress and completion.
• Host courses with ProProfs or customize course designs with your company logo and embed the course on your website.

Digital Marketing

14. MailChimp

Business owners use e-mail marketing to communicate with their present and potential customers and promote loyalty while increasing sales. MailChimp makes email marketing easier and helps you create and sort your electronic mailing lists. It sends automated campaigns to promote your products and services and keep your subscribers involved. The software gathers and analyzes customer data and movement so that you can create personalized emails and send them to specific subscribers at the right time, automatically.

Features:

• It has a wide selection of ready-to-use and customizable campaign templates and email designers. You can edit and resize photos with the use of the Mailchimp built-in tools.
• Mailchimp gathers and provides you data based on the purchasing patterns of your customers helping you analyze the possible future purchases of your customers. You can easily recommend specific products to specific subscribers and increase sales significantly.
• The merge tag feature helps business owners send personalized emails. Simply include the right merge tag in the campaign to be sent and Mailchimp will work to replace those merge tags with personalized content.
• The advanced segmentation features allow business owners to create more complex segments used to send precise campaigns to target subscribers.
• The Timewarp feature allows you to send your campaigns when your subscribers are awake.
• Explore the behavior of your subscribers better and analyze each campaign’s performance quickly through comparative data.
• Share your campaigns on social media with MailChimp by simply connecting your Facebook, Twitter, or your preferred social accounts to Mailchimp.

15. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the most comprehensive analytics platforms on the web and is also 100% free. Use Google Analytics for website reporting, measure & assess scores of your marketing efforts as well as user interest and engagement sessions by providing a centralized platform for data collection, reporting, and analysis. This tool can help you decide the ideal combination models to monetize your business based on four main components: Data collection, Configuration, Data processing, and Reporting.

Features:

• Google Analytics tells you how many people are visiting your site each day and trends over time that will influence your online marketing decisions.
• Set conversion points on your website for tracking in Google Analytics to see when someone converted, the traffic source that referred them, with other analyses.
• The behavior flow feature helps you track where your audience is spending time on your website and which page they exit from your website.
• Setting goals and creating goal funnels is one most important features of this tool and is very effective in determining whether your website attracting the right kind of traffic for the business.
• Use keyword referrals to see what keywords people used to find you, which can heavily influence your website’s SEO strategy.
• You’ll be able to see if any third-party websites sent you traffic. This will help you to understand what sites are worth spending time on, as well as if any new sites have started linking to yours.
• You create custom dashboards for your analytics and they can be exported into PDF and CSV format reports for easy sharing.

16. HubSpot

HubSpot provides a complete platform for marketing, sales, customer service, and CRM software. It includes everything a marketer needs to increase website traffic, convert website visitors into leads, and deliver a measurable ROI. It brings a variety of functionalities allowing marketing and sales departments to manage all their activities in one place including content creation, social media sharing, workflow automation, lead capture, customer relationship management, sales, and performance tracking.

Features:

• It has all-rounded features on one CRM platform that also supports integrated marketing activities and analytics and provides customizable marketing workflows.
• Use available contact data to create personalized and relevant marketing content via the automation process.
• The lead Magnet mechanism feature attracts potential leads towards your business and steadily converts them into your customers.
• HubSpot content optimization system offers dynamic, responsive, and customizable content templates. These templates include device-friendly optimizations.
• It offers the most advanced tools to create websites, blog content, landing pages, and marketing emails.
• Enabling social media inbox stream feature from your HubSpot account to monitor social activities, reactions & replies over postings, and identify content that is generating interaction.
• HubSpot Connect program provides an opportunity for the software and marketing industry to get integrated with various software products from HubSpot through the integration APIs they provide.
• Analytics dashboard by HubSpot offers insights on customer engagement and behavior while visiting the site.
• Pipeline management is a robust feature that helps you add deals to your CRM with a single click, assign tasks to push deals forward, and track progress in your dashboards.
• HubSpot marketing academy offers a free source of tons of certifications in the fields of digital marketing, sales, and designs, etc.

Design

17. Canva

Canva is a web-based graphic design tool with easy-to-use functionality. It allows users to access and collaborate on design work and is compatible with different devices. Anyone in the team can design documents with its easy drag and drop feature. The tool provides access to hundreds of design layouts for creating presentations, social media graphics, posters, flyers, invitations, and more. You can edit photos, save templates, and organize images while making them available for the whole team.

Features:

• The user interface is very intuitive and is super easy to use. All your questions can be answered through their resource documents.
• It serves well in both simple and heavy design projects. You can find and create a variety of content templates for social media graphics and header templates to marketing materials, documents, presentations, invitations and ads, eBooks, and resumes.
• Templates available allow for easy customization of font, colors, and photos. Additionally, add stickers and create moving gifs.
• Save all your designs for retrieval, and easy duplication so you can create one template and reuse it for multiple projects.
• Easily collaborate with others on designs by sharing and opening the document for edit.
• iPad app that’s as full-featured and easy-to-use as the online version of Canva.
• Unlimited storage for photos and you can upload your photos. You get access to 400,000 free photos, illustrations, and templates.
• Easily resize your designs in custom dimensions.

18. InVision

InVision is one of the most comprehensive design software created for and by designers. It ensures that every little detail of your work process is implemented effortlessly and everyone on your remote team is in sync throughout the process. It gives you real-time collaboration, execution, review, and communication with your team as well as stakeholders. With Invision you can share your mockups ‘live’ with your audience or clients allowing them to interact with the model and give you vital feedback with a multitude of options.

Features:

• You can create a dummy app that temporarily shows up in your app listings when testing responsive designs on your preferred device.
• Send a link to an interactive prototype that they can interact with like an actual website.
• Feedback on your experience and design is quick and easy with a range of different options. You can get your ideas and amends across, simply by commenting on the element you are exploring. It also has accessibility restriction options for clients, users, or team members.
• You can create to-do lists and record all progress from start to finish inside the app with fully integrated version history control and syncing.
• You can make interactive presentations, to make them look and feel like end products. With LiveShare, every member has their pointer and name tag, so you know which part of the design someone else is talking about. You can comment and add feedback.
• It has a fully responsive range of features, allowing you to keep the gestures of native mobile prototyping. Choose from multiple Android and iOS options when presenting your mobile designs on a big screen.
• Upload JPG, PNG, PDF, or GIF files for prototyping which enables it to work with any design tool you use for any stage of design.

Signature

Professional courses to check out

Technical Writing Course

SEO Course

GST Course

19. Document Sign by Adobe

Adobe Document Sign helps get signatures remotely, easily, and swiftly without you needing an Adobe account to be able to sign one. Adobe Sign is compatible with all browsers and operating systems. It is a great time saver and environmentally friendly too as it minimizes the use of paper and saves you from the process of downloading, printing, signing then scanning documents.

Features:

• Easy usability by simply uploading a document that needs to be signed and hit send to the signer’s email address.
• Get real-time notifications and reminders for every document you send out to be signed.
• Track the entire signing process from within your Microsoft Office applications.
• The tool automatically secures and stores final signed documents and audit trails of every transaction.
• You can add PDFs and documents as reusable templates so your business can quickly collect signatures without starting from scratch every time.
• You can post PDFs and documents to your website as online forms that anyone can fill, sign, and submit.
• Use the mega sign to send a personalized form to every signer with a single click when you need to send one agreement to multiple people to sign.
• Adobe Sign reflects your company’s brand on all forms and documents for greater consistency, professionalism, and impact.
• Collect signatures and online payments from customers all in a single transaction.
• It has secure e-signatures designed to meet the most demanding laws and industry-specific regulations.
• It verifies signer identity through knowledge-based authentication, phone authentication, and other methods. You can costume the required authentication to high-value documents for increased security.
• Drag and drop to create workflow templates that reduce mistakes and streamline the signing process.
• It includes extensive APIs to easily add e-signature capabilities to the apps you and your customers already rely on.

20. DocuSign

DocuSign offers users a complete end-to-end electronic process from completing approvals, agreements, and transactions. It is one of the most reliable and fast ways to electronically sign documents, contracts, permission slips from almost anywhere in the world. DocuSign helps you eliminate the paper, automate and streamline the process, allowing companies a turnaround time in minutes rather than in days, substantially reducing cost and time, and largely eliminate errors.

Features:

• It is free to sign any document with DocuSign. Signatures are as legally binding as ink. Virtually upload a document to complete, sign, and return.
• The platform integrates with popular business apps, and the functionality can be embedded using their API.
• It is a comprehensive transaction management solution. It enables you to prepare, implement, and manage your transactions.
• Place “sign here” tags, and more for a better signing experience.
• It offers a secure and comprehensive business solution for eSigning and includes features like industry-standard encryption and tamper detection. It also enables rapid deployment with a cloud-based, fully integrated digital signature solution.
• Compatible from a smartphone, tablet, or computer and the everyday apps you may use every day like Gmail, Google Drive, Outlook, Dropbox, Microsoft office, and more.
• It lowers cost and reduces turnaround time, maximizes usability, and convenience.
• Simplifies the digital signature and automatically generates a digital certificate when signing that matches the authentication strength of the transaction.
• DocuSign also supports third-party digital signatures with the SAFE-BioPharma digital certificate for the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries.