The importance of collaboration software
Fluid, focused collaboration is essential in any workplace, and remote working shouldn’t be seen as a barrier for successful collaborative work. Having the right tools at hand to facilitate and encourage valuable collaboration is equally important as having strong communication skills.
Dropbox offers a number of innovative, intuitive features that place collaboration at the forefront of successful work. The team collaboration tools outlined below are designed to make it easier for teams to work together from afar and are just as useful for teams who share a physical space.
Having all the files, info and tools you need on the same page helps keep your team members and stakeholders on the same page.
Dropbox: your ultimate collaboration platform
Dropbox can transform folders into versatile, collaborative workspaces where you can add descriptions, annotations, to-do lists and more, all directly to a Dropbox folder and the files contained within.
Built with machine intelligence, Dropbox is designed to help teams maximise their collaborative potential by offering everything you need to work together efficiently from one central space.
Features like Image Search, file previews, Dropbox Paper integration and team highlights make it easier than ever for teams to stay organised and focused on the tasks at hand. User-friendly calendar integration allows you to instantly link content from Dropbox to events and meetings, making meetings more productive than ever.
With Dropbox, you can ensure that the members of your team can easily see relevant files, goals, dates and milestones all in a single space.
Dropbox Paper: online collaboration tools from start to finish
The flexibility of Dropbox Paper can guide your team through every step of the collaboration process, offering templates and tools that tackle the many challenges of online collaboration. Let’s take a walk through each step of the process and see how Dropbox Paper can be used to strengthen teamwork:
Planning
In the planning stages of a project, you want to ensure that everyone’s on the same page and that everyone has access to all necessary information.
Accountability and communication are vital components of collaboration and as you begin to strategise your process, you should take advantage of tools that help you structure your ideas in an organised, digestible way.
Shared calendars, to-do lists, interactive briefs and meeting agendas are all tools that ensure your team stays on top of its goals and expectations, and Dropbox Paper offers versatile templates for each of these collaborative task management tools.
When you use the collaborative tools offered by Dropbox Paper, you ensure that every member of the team is clear on both the objectives of the team and their individual responsibilities, as well as knowing exactly where to go should problems or confusion arise.
Production
If you have multiple team members working on the same project, you want to make sure they can fluidly work on the same file at the same time. This means without having to send documents back and forth or having to wait for one team member to be done before the next can begin.
Dropbox Paper lets your team work collaboratively in real time. Your entire team can work on the same document from anywhere in the world, with no delays.
Rather than filling your folders with endless file versions, you’re able to track the file history of a single document. There’s no need to save and share new copies over and over as each team member adds their input. This allows for a less cluttered workspace that will fuel more organised, efficient collaboration.
Feedback
Feedback is a hugely important step in the collaborative process, but it can be counterintuitive if not done in the right way. When it comes to the review stages of a project or piece of work, it’s important to be clear and direct, and the real-time feedback features of Dropbox Paper make it easy.
You shouldn’t have to trawl through messy email chains to track progress. With annotations in Dropbox, you can view feedback alongside the work it’s relevant to and tag team members directly so nothing’s ever missed or muddled.
For example, if you’re offering feedback on a specific sentence in a document, you can annotate that sentence directly, so that your notes are easily linked to the specific areas you’re highlighting.
Feedback doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom; it should be productive, constructive and should reinforce the strengths of your team, not hinder them. A good feedback system assists team collaboration because it establishes a more open, honest and productive environment for your team.
If you want to add a bit of playful energy to the process, try using emojis on Dropbox Paper to visually communicate feedback in a succinct, informal way.
Delivery
You need a document management platform that keeps your work protected, makes it easier for your team to stay focused and productive and also allows you to safely share your work when it comes time to deliver. Using cloud storage means giving your team, clients and customers access to work files from anywhere, creating more flexible workflow management.
The tidier your workspace, virtual or not, the better your team can collaborate. You won’t need to waste time sifting through everyone’s folders in search of the correct file, and you won’t need to rely on any one person to provide the important data. On Dropbox, you can share files at the click of a button and set your own permissions to define who can do what with a document you share.
That means that Dropbox Paper isn’t just an excellent solution for collaborative production – it can see you through every step of the process, from strategy to delivery and everything in between.
The best collaboration tools to integrate with Dropbox
When you integrate Dropbox with other team collaboration software, you can really explore the true power of teamwork.
Get more out of Zoom
Now a household name, Zoom is a staple tool in the modern workplace, facilitating face-to-face collaboration from a distance. Zoom can be integrated with Dropbox, allowing for even more efficient communication among teams.
When you integrate Dropbox with Zoom, your meetings become all the more productive. You’ll be able to collaborate in real time by starting or joining Zoom calls directly from Dropbox files, so you can keep the work front and centre without having to switch between platforms.
Meeting recordings and even transcripts can be automatically copied from Zoom to Dropbox, and you can easily view which files were shared from Dropbox during meetings.
Integrating Zoom with Dropbox lets your team make the most of video conferencing by providing quick and easy access to important work in a unified space.
Trello
Trello uses Kanban boards as visual project management tools, allowing you to arrange ‘cards’ into customisable columns. Within a Trello card, you can add images, attachments, titles, comments and descriptions, as well as tagging specific users, setting up deadlines and notifications, colour coding and more.
When integrated with Dropbox, your team can share files and folders directly to a Trello board, without even needing to leave Dropbox. You can then track Trello activity on that file straight from the file preview in Dropbox.
Whether you use it to organise feedback, brainstorm ideas, track progress or for resource management, Dropbox integration with Trello bridges process and production and helps you better manage the many cogs and gears of collaborative work.
Slack
Slack lets you create specialised channels for teams and projects where you can share files directly from Dropbox, make voice and video calls, start dedicated chats and more.
This project collaboration software allows you to communicate with your team in a straightforward, versatile way without needing to reserve time for unnecessary meetings and without falling into the trap of messy email chains.
Use communication tools like instant messaging and create chats and channels for each specific aspect of a project. Then, communicate in real time as you do the work, so your team never loses momentum.
When you integrate Slack with Dropbox, you’ll be able to send files directly to a Slack channel from your Dropbox, connect multiple Slack workspaces to one Dropbox account and collaborate on Dropbox Paper documents from within Slack itself.
One space with all the tools you need
When it comes to effective teamwork, you want to establish a unified space where every team member can both work and communicate with each other, and one that offers tools that overcome the limitations of remote collaboration.
The collaboration software and tools we’ve outlined above will help your team maximise its potential, offering everything you need for effective collaborative work, no matter how virtual the workspace may be.
You don’t need to waste time jumping back and forth from tool to tool, with Dropbox Integrations, your team can make the most of the very best collaboration apps and tools all from a single space, on any device.
